Karin and the Rogue
by XxCupcakecandyxX
Summary: Karin, a wealthy young heiress gets herself engaged to the perfect gentlemen Aizen. What happens when the handsome ships captain Toshiro Hitsugaya starts to meddle in their relationship? just read if you want to find out. and don't forget to R&R AU
1. Chapter 1

Chapter one

The Atlantic Ocean, Gibraltar 1810

"Lady Karin?"

Karin turned her head at the sound of her name being called so softly from across the ship deck. The moon was full. She could see the person calling her quite clearly by its silver light… but she doubted the he, in turn would be able to perceive the blush that suffused her cheeks at the sight of him.

Yet how would she help but blush? The sight of the tall, brown-haired lord nearly always brought color to her cheeks, not to mention a curious flutter to her pulse. He was so handsome. What woman would not blush when such a good looking man happened to glance her way?

And tonight Lord Sousuke was a good deal more than glancing. Indeed, he was crossing the deck to come and stand beside her at the railing, where she'd leaned for the past half hour staring at the hypnotic band of light that the moon was casting upon the water, and listening the gentle lap of waves upon the sides of the _Harmoy_', the ship that carried them all from India.

"Good evening, my lord," Karin murmured demurely, when the earl reached her side. "You are well, Lady Karin?" Lord Sousuke asked with just a hint of anxiety in his deep voice. "Forgive me for asking, but you hardly touched your dinner. And then you left the table before dessert was served."

Karin did not think it would be at all romantic, standing as they were beneath that lush silver moon, to inform the earl that she'd left the table because the roast was scandalously underdone that she'd get it her duty to go to the galley and have words about it with the cook.

It was not her place, of course to have done so. Mrs. White, the captains wife, was one who ought properly to have take the ship's cook to task.

But Mrs. White, in Karin's opinion, would not know the roux from the béarnaise, and quite probably liked her meat undercooked. Karin had never been able to abide slovenly cooking. And was so simple to do a roast properly!

But this was hardly the kind of thing one brought up before a young man like Lord Sousuke. Not under a night sky like the one above them. Besides, one simply did not speak of underdone meat in front of an earl.

And so instead Karin said, stretching a hand eloquently toward the moon, "Why, I only wanted a breath of fresh air and happened upon this view. It was so lovely, how could I return below and miss such a breath taking sight?"

This was, Karin thought to her self, a bit of a high-flown speech. There was those on board. She knew, who might as well make retching noises had they happened to have over heard it.

Fortunately, Aizen Sousuke, the ninth earl of Sousuke, was not one of those people. His brown-eyed gaze followed the graceful arc of her arm, and he said reverently, "Indeed. I have never seen such a beautiful moon. But" and here his gaze returned to Karin "It's not the only breathtaking sight to be seen here on deck."

Karin knew she was blushing quite hard now... but from pleasure, not embarrassment. Why, the earl was flirting with her! How perfectly delightful. Her ayah back in Jaipur had warned her then men might try to flirt with her, but Karin had hardly expected someone as handsome as Lord Sousuke to pay her such civilities. It was beginning to seem as if the evening, which had looked rather dismal in light of the disastrous roast, was shaping up very nicely indeed.

"Well Lord Sousuke," Karin said, lowering her sooty eyelashes— though they were not really sooty, of course, as her ayah had informed her, as black as soot, anyway. "I cant think of what you mean."

"Can't you?" Lord Sousuke reached out and suddenly took the hand that she'd purposefully left lying upon the ship's railing, temptingly close to his. "Karin—may I call you Karin?"

He could have called her Bertha she wouldn't have cared in the least. Not when he was pressing her hand so tightly, as if it were the most precious thing in the worlds, against his chest. She could feel his heart drumming, strong and vibrant, beneath the cream-colored satin of his waist coat. _Goodness_, she thought with some astonishment. _I do believe he is about to propose!_

Which he promptly did.

"Karin," Lord Sousuke said, the moonlight bringing into high relief of planes of his regularly featured face. He was such a handsome man, with his square jaw and broad shoulders. He would, Karin decided with some satisfaction, make a very dashing husband indeed. "I know we have not been acquainted long—just under three months— but these past few weeks… well, they've been the happiest I've ever known. It breaks my heart that tomorrow I shall leave you to travel on to England alone, for I have business to attend to in Lisbon…"

Dreadful Lisbon! How Karin hated the sound of that foul city, stealing away this young excessively charming young man! Lucky Lisbon, that it should get to bask in the glow of the delightful Lord Souske.

"Oh, well," she said, trying not to sound airily unconcerned, "Perhaps we shall meet again in London by and by—" "Not by and by," Lord Sousuke said, flattening her palm against his heart with both hands.

"Never say by and by when it concerns us! For I never met a girl quite like you, Karin, so beautiful… so intelligent… so competent with the help. I cannot imagine what a perfect creature like you could ever see in a pitiful wastrel like my self, but I promise that if, whilst I am at Lisbon, you will wait for me, and upon my return deign to give me your hand in marriage, I will love you until the day I die, and do nothing but try to make my self worthy of you!"

_La_, Karin thought, very pleased at this turn of events. _How jolly is this! A girl goes to chastise a cook for undergoing the roast, and comes to the table a bride-to-be! _Her uncle Urahara would be quite put out when he heard about it, however. He'd wagered Karin wouldn't get a proposal until she'd been at least a year in England, and here she was getting one before even setting foot on shore. He wouldn't be at all happy about owing her uncles Chad and Kon a fiver.

The three of them would be taught a sharp lesson indeed! Imagine them sending her off to England so unceremoniously, simply because she had suggested — merely suggested, mind you— that one of them marry her dear friend Miss… oh, what's her name again, anyway? Well, it is simply ridiculous, not one of them agreeing to marry poor Miss Whatever-Her-Name-Was, when Karin had, had such a lovely wedding planned. Now it was her own wedding she'd be planning instead! Perhaps when her uncles caught a glimpse of her own wedded bliss, they'd give Whatever-Her-Name-Was a second look…

"Oh, dear," Karin said in tones of great — and completely feigned—distress, batting those sooty lashes as her ayah had recommended. "This is all so terribly sudden, Lord Sousuke."

"Please," Lord Sousuke said, clutching her hand even more tightly, if such thing were possible. "Call me Aizen."

"Very well… Aizen," Karin said in her most womanly voice, "I…"

It was always a good idea, Karin's ayah had told her, to leave young men in some suspense as to your true feelings for them. Accordingly, Karin was about to tell young Lord Sousuke that his ardor had taken her completely unaware, and that she she was but sixteen and hardly yet ready for matrimony, she'd have to turn down his proposal… for now. With any luck, this answer would throw the poor young man into such a fit of passion that he might do something rash, such as heave himself overboard, which would be very exciting indeed. And if he survived the dunking, Karin would be assured of good many more proposals from him when he returned from Portugal, which would give her something to look forwards to whilst she was staying with her horrid aunt and uncle Kuchiki.

All of her hopes for a dramatic— and hopefully very damp—climax to this tender scene were dashed, however when, just as Karin was about to turn down Lord Sousuke proposal, a deep and all-to-familiar-voice reached her from acrass the ship's deck, its accents, as always, dripping with sarcasm.

"There you two are," Toshiro Hitsugaya drawled as he stepped out of the shadows by the rigging and onto the silver puddle of light thrown by the moon. "The captain was wondering —Oh, I say, I'm not _interrupting_ anything am I?"

Karin snatched her hand out from beneath the earl's grip. "Certainly not," she said quickly.

_Stuff and bother! _What a tiresome young man this Toshiro Hitsugaya was! Since he'd joined the 'Harmony' at the Cape of Good Hope six weeks earlier, he seemed always to be appearing at the most inopportune times, such as whenever Karin and the earl happened to find a rare moment alone together.

And it wasn't as if Captain Hitsugaya— for in spite his youth, the interfereing young gentleman was a naval officer— were so very pleasing a companion. Why, he wore his collar points shockingly low, instead of level with the corners of his mouth, as Lord Aizen and all the most stylish young men were wearing them. And he had exceedingly disrespectful to Karin the time he had overheard her advising Captain White that his crew would be a good deal less discontented if they were only made aware of the merits of higher thought. Karin herself had volunteered to read to them every noontide form Mary Wollstonecraft's _Vindication of the Rights of Women,_ and had been a good deal put out when Captain White politely declined her kind offer.

Mr. Hitsugaya, however, had not been a bit polite about it. He had taken to calling her Miss Bee (as in busy bee) and had ventured that if she always she was always this intent on offering her assistance to people who hadn't asked for it, it was no wonder her bachelor uncles were sending her to live with relatives back in England.

And yet here Toshiro Hitsugaya was, butting his nose into the private affairs of his fellow ship passengers! Why, it was infuriating!

Lord Sousuke seemed to think so too, if his next words were any indication.

"Actually, Hitsugaya," the earl said in his smooth, cultured tone, "you _are_ interrupting something."

"So sorry." Toshiro Hitsugaya said, not sounding the tiniest bit sorry. "But Mrs. White wants Lady Karin."

"Kindly tell Mrs. White I shall be there directly," Karin said, straightening her lace fichu and hoping that perhaps in the moonlight Mr. Hitsugaya hadn't noticed how close she and the earl had been standing…

That hope was dashed, however, when Toshiro Hitsugaya said in a tone that sounded not unlike one of her uncles, "No, my lady. You had better go see Mrs. White _now_."

Karin felt another hot flush fill her cheeks. How dared he order her about as if she were his midday? Toshiro Hitsugaya, with his impertinent ways and too-bright teal eyes that seemed to see everything, needed a lesson in manners. He ought to learn that young men who wore their collar points too low and who teased young ladies to whom they were not even related would never earn the affection of anyone… particularly any of those said young ladies.

And Karin thought she knew just who could best give this lesson to the unfortunate captain.

Accordingly, she turned to Lord, Sousuke, and, giving her hand once more, said gravely, "My lord, in answer to your question, I would be honored to be your wife."

The look of astonishment that flickered across Captain Hitsugaya's face at that moment quite made up for Karin's no longer being able to look forward to Lord Sousuke leaping overboard in frustrated passion.

In all, she congratulated herself on a job well done.

Very well done indeed!

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***A/N: Yay! My first multi-chapter story is starting! Lol, please review and tell me what you thought. Until next time!**

**-White Tigress369**


	2. Chapter 2

***A/N I would like to thank everyone who either favorite, reviewed, or alerted this story. I seriously thought this wasn't going to be that good lol but I'm glad it was and I'll try not to disappoint. Now onward with the story!**

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Chapter Two

England!

Karin gazed at the crowded and busy wharf through the captain's spyglass. So this, she thought, was England at last. She had to confess herself unimpressed. England so far was nothing like her uncles had led to believe. The dock was almost exactly like the one she'd left in Bombay some three months earlier, being both dirty and exceedingly disorganized-looking. Really, it might almost have been Bombay, except for the general dearth of monkeys.

And of course, there was the fact that above their heads hung a leaden and sullen sky, whilst the sky that had stretched across Karin's beloved Jaipur had nearly always been cloudless, and as deeply blue as a maharaja's sapphire—except during monsoon season, of course.

Really, it was a lot to ask any girl to bear, this dirty sky and even dirtier dock… but it was far, far worse for Karin who had to endure the absence of her fiancé— her secret fiancé— since with the exception of the loathsome Captain Hitsugaya, no one yet knew Karin and Lord Sousuke's happy news. Two days! Two whole days since she'd bid the earl farewell! And now they expected her to endure this bleak sky and shoreline as well? No. it was too much.

"Is it the rainy season, then, Captain?" Karin asked, passing the spyglass back to captain white, who, along with his wife, had acted as her chaperones throughout the long ocean voyage.

"The rainy season," the captain echoed with a chuckle. "My lady, in England, I'm sorry to say, is anything but."

Mrs. White, standing beside her husband, looked shocked.

"Percival!" she cried. "Do not quiz Lady Karin so. Don't you believe a word he says, my lady. It is spring, and while it does rain more than usual in England in the spring, I can assure you that we have our share of fine weather as well."

Karin nodded, but could not help darting a dubious look at the sky. If there was a sun behind that thick layer of clouds, she could see no sign of it.

Not that it mattered especially, she thought with and inward shrug. She did not need the sun, after all. She had her own special secret to keep her warm. Though should the sun choose to make an appearance at some point, Karin would not take it at all amiss.

"Oh, there is the long boat," Mrs. White said, as the sound of a scrape was heard portside. "In a moment the swing will arrive to take you down, my lady. Now, you mustn't be frightened of the swing. It is perfectly safe. You could not be in better hands than the crew of the _Harmony_, as I am certain by now you are well aware…"

But Karin was hardly paying attention. That was because she had seen, out of the corner of her eye, a bright spot of blue upon all the monotonous grays and browns that made up the garb of the crew. Only one person on board— with the exception of herself, of course—wore such bold colors, and that was someone Karin hadn't the slightest interest in speaking to just at that moment— or any moment, to be honest. She turned to face resolutely toward the shoreline, though the damp wind that was tugging on the hem of her pelisse blew from that direction, throwing occasional stinging drops of wet upon her cheeks.

"… safe as a kitten in a basket," Mrs. White was going on. Then she broke off with a glad cry. "Why, Captain Hitsugaya! There you are! I was just saying to Lady Karin that she needn't fear the swing, that in fact it is quite safe. Do reassure her as well, wont you?"

Mr. Hitsugaya, Karin noted after the briefest of glances in his direction, still wore that insolent grin he seemed to have had on ever since Lisbon. Insufferable man! She pressed her lips together and wished heartily, as she'd been doing ever since that unfortunate incident off the Portugues coast— where the captain had interrupted her moonlight proposal— that Toshiro Hitsugaya might suffer a shipboard accident that would render him comatose. Sadly, it did not appear that any such calamity had befallen the young gentleman, since he seemed to have total mastery over his own tongue.

"I am certain," he said in the cool, mocking tone that so infuriated Karin every time she heard it, "that her ladyship needs no such assurances from me. Any young woman who has been brought up, as Lady Karin informs me that she has, by four British officers in the wilds of Jaipur— an area, I believe she said, that is rife with tigers— is unlikely to be daunted by a mere swing."

Karin sent the young man what she hoped he read as a scornful look. It was impossible to say Captain Hitsugaya would make of her expression, however, since he persisted in seeking her acquaintance despite everything she'd done to discourage him.

"Tigers?" Mrs. White looked horrified. "Really, my lady? I must say, I… Tigers? Fearsome creatures, I understand. Are you saying you encountered them? Regularly? How ever did you manage to get away?"

"I shot them, of course," Karin replied with some asperity, and, at Mrs. White's gasp, flicked an irritated glance in Toshiro Hitsugaya's direction. Honestly, if he wasn't poking fun at Karin's suggestion to Captain White that the decks be swabbed with lye instead of vinegar so that they'd get cleaner, he was making light of her assertion that lemon juice made the best rinse for ladies' hair.

Apparently lemons were not as bountiful in England, as they were in India. But how was she to have known that? He seemed to have an opinion on everything, and not the least compunction about sharing those opinions… most especially those for which he had not been asked.

As if this were not irritating enough, Mr. Hitsugaya had the added fault of looking exceedingly agreeable, despite distressingly low collar points. His coats and breeches were impeccably tailored, his Hessians highly shined, and his white hair neatly trimmed. It was quite objectionable that so maddening an individual should be so attractive.

How very different Toshiro Hitsugaya was from a certain other young man Karin could— but wouldn't for propriety's sake—name! As different as day and night, though the other gentleman was every bit as handsome… but certainly better skilled as turning his shirt collar, as well as holding his tongue.

It was unfortunate that Karin had not quite mastered that particular art as well, since Mrs. White was all in a dither over her tiger remark.

"Shot them!" Mrs. White cried, her face going white as the lace inside her bonnet. "My lady! With a rifle?"

It occurred to Karin a bit belatedly that proper young English woman did not as a general rule make a habit of going about and shooting wild animals, and that she really ought to have kept this particular talent of hers secret— rather like she was trying to keep secret that particular moonlight night off the coast of Lisbon… no thanks to Captain Hitsugaya, who was forever reminding her of it, as he did now.

"Oh, Lady Karin is as skilled at firing a rifle as she is at winning hearts. She has as many tiger pelts as she does marriage proposals," he said with a wink— an actual wink!— in Karin's direction. "She collects them. Don't you my lady?"

Karin was convinced that if there were a ruder young man in all the world, she had yet to encounter him. It was on the tip of her tongue to point this fact out to the impertinent Captain Hitsugaya when Mrs. White husband who'd gone portside to supervise the lowering of the longboat, suddenly reappeared with the announcement, "Lady Karin, if you are quite ready the swing has been prepared."

Karin, still smarting over Toshiro Hitsugaya's reminder of the tender scene he'd do rudely interrupted the other night, replied, without stopping to think what she was saying. "I shan't need the swing, Captain. I am perfectly able-bodied and shall climb the ladder down the longboat like everyone else."

Young Captain Hitsugaya raised his white eyebrows upon hearing this, but for once said nothing. It was Mrs. White who looked likely to suffer an apoplexy over Karin's announcement.

"The ladder?" she cried. "The ladder? Oh, my lady. You can't know… you must not be aware… the latter will never do at all. Oh, no, not at all. I cannot allow it. I simply cannot."

Stuff and bother. Belatedly, Karin realized she had, once again committed a faux pas. Young English ladies did not apparently climb down ladders, any more than they went strolling around ship decks of sailing ships after dark with young men to whom they were not related— as she had had pointed out to her several times, and to her everlasting chagrin, by Toshiro Hitsugaya. It might, Karin reflected have been nice if her uncles had warned her of these things before they'd so unceremoniously shipped her off to this bizarre and foreign land.

A glance at Toshiro Hitsugaya, however, showed Karin that she could not back down now. His teal eyes looked more mischievous than ever, and his mouth was distinctly curled up at the corners.

"Tut, tut, Mrs. White," he said "Lady Karin, take the swing? Swings are for mealymouthed misses who swoon at the sight of a shark fin. Lady Karin is made of sterner stuff than that. Why, I'd put her against a shark any day of the week."

Karin narrowed her eyes at the odious Captain Hitsugaya. Really, he was so full of himself! Back in Jaipur, if any of the young officers had addressed her in such a manner, Karin's uncles would have had the unfortunate young man stripped of his rank.

To how Mr. Hitsugaya that his teasing did not bother her in the least, Karin turned to Mrs. White and said calmly. "I shan't bang about on a swing in this wind. I'd be dashed along the side of the ship. The ladder will do for me nicely, thank you"

Mrs. White fluttered her hands, "Oh, but my lady, really I feel I must… as your own dear parents are no longer with us, and your uncles appointed me as your guardian for your journey, I feel I must act in their stead, and say that it is truly not all seemly—"

"Stuff and Bother." Karin said sharply. How tiresome these English ladies were! "Show me the ladder and let us have done with it before the rains come." For the sky overhead definitely looked threatening to Karin, no matter what anyone else might say, and she did not want her new bonnet, which she'd saved for this very day, to be ruined.

Upon being led to the ladder, however, Karin found that her enthusiasm for it waned somewhat. It really was quite a long was down, and the ladder was, after all, made only of rope and wood. But, she told herself staunchly, so was the swing, and at least on the ladder she would be in dropped down by crew members… some of whom Karin feared were not all together as committed to their duties as one might hope.

Accordingly, she hiked up her skirt and pelisse—causing Mrs. White to gasp, as if the glimpse of a woman's ankles were quite the most offensive thing in the world. It was a good thing, Karin thought, that Mrs. White had never been to Jaipur, where women and girls_ including Karin_ regularly went about with their feet and legs bared to the knees, and she swung a leg over the ship railing. She teetered there for a moment while her foot sought purchase on the first rung of the rope ladder, and happened to glance down again…

And realized this was a mistake. The men in the boat below looked very small indeed. It was a long, long way down to the water's choppy, whitecapped surface. Such a long way down, in fact, that Karin began to feel strangely hot, though the wind that was nipping at her skirts was quite brisk. Her pulse, she was convinced, had begun to stagger, and her mouth had gone suddenly dry

Karin froze where she was, beginning to think that the swing might not be such a bad thing, as at least she could keep her eyes closed all the was down. She was trying to decide how she might broach this subject to the people in front of whom she had only scoffed at such an idea, when she felt a hand, warm and reassuring, upon her gloved fingers.

She opened her eyes to see the odious Captain Hitsugaya hanging above her, the corner of his lips, as usual, twisted into a smile… only this one was not scornful, but rather kind.

"Don't look down," he advised her gently, "and you'll be all right."

Karin swallowed _ a difficulty given the dryness of her throat_ and nodded, not trusting her voice. There was nothing for it now. She had no choice but to climb down, as she had apparently last all ability to speak, and could not ask for the swing.

Down she accordingly went, carefully keeping her gaze on the side of the ship as she climbed. She could hear the men shouting encouragingly to her_ "Easy does it, m'lady." And "Nice'n' slow now"_ and she was quite grateful to them, since their voices made the roaring in her ears, which had nothing to do with the sea, seems less oppressive.

And then finally, sooner than she might have suspected, she felt their hands on her elbows and waist, and she was lifted from the ladder and put down inside the longboat…which was a good thing. Since her knees gave out completely the moment her feet touched the boats bottom, and she knew she would not have been able to walk to her seat unaided.

There were some cries of "Hurrah!" from the ship's deck, impossibly high above her head, and Karin began to feel the blood move inside her veins once more. _La_, she thought. _Why, that was nothing at all! Imagine being afraid of a little climb like that!_

By the time poor Mrs. White_ who, of course, opted to descend by the swing_ joined her in the longboat, Karin had forgotten all about her own fear and could not help feeling annoyed at the other woman's theatrics. For, despite Mrs. White's assertions that the swing was perfectly safe, she shrieked quite hysterically all the way down, before collapsing completely once she was safely inside the longboat. Karin was forced to wave hartshorn beneath the lady's nose before she became sensible_ quiet a deplorable way to behave, Karin could not help thinking, for a ship's captain's wife. She could not see why Captain White bothered to let his wife come along during his voyages at all.

Captain Hitsugaya, who descended by ladder a few moments after Mrs. White was safely delivered, was nothing but admiring looks for Karin_ something she noted with a good deal of relish. It was a shame about Toshiro Hitsugaya's collar points_ and his character, of course, which was of far too teasing a bent to be desirable_ because in every other respect he was quite an agreeable young man. In fact, if she hadn't met Lord Sousuke first, Karin thought she might have found herself in some danger of falling for the dashing captain…

Except, of course, for his grating personal manner, which made any such match unthinkable.

Still, he could be nice enough when he put his mind to it, as he'd illustrated in his sensible advice to Karin earlier on the deck about not looking down.

At lest, that was what Karin was thinking until the young captain noticed the hartshorn she held to Mrs. White's pale face. For some reason it compelled Captain Hitsugaya to remark in a cheerful tone, "Well, you must be feeling very happy indeed, Miss Bee. Finally a chance to be useful to someone!"

From that moment until they safely reached the dock, Karin had nothing but dark looks for Toshiro Hitsugaya, who engaged her further by seeming only to find her snubs amusing, instead of being upset enough by them to apologize for his rudeness, as any other young man would have done. He showed not the slightest indication to throw himself overboard in penance for his mistake, either.

As if this were not bad enough, Karin, upon arriving at last upon the very dirty and disrespectable-looking dock she'd observed through the captain's spyglass, found herself being exhorted by Mrs. White not to stare at the prisoners being loaded onto a ship headed for the penal colonies, something Karin found very hard not to do, for when else was she ever going to get another chance to look at a face of a tax evader?

But it was not seemly for young English ladies, Mrs. White informed her, to show such avid interest in convicted felons. Back in India, Mrs. White understood, things like public hangings were commonplace, but in England such barbarous activities were no longer tolerated, and hangings took place in prison yards where they belonged, and it was considered rude to stare, even at tax evaders for the opposite hemisphere.

What dull creatures the English were! Karin could not help thinking. Really, but she found it very difficult indeed to believe she would ever fit in with these colorless, bland people. But she supposed that if she was to be married to one of them_ though no one could ever think of Aizen Sousuke as bland_ she had better start trying, at least to get along with them.

But Karin felt her patience was being too severely tested when the loud clattering of horse hooves sounded on the cobblestones nearby, and she heard her name being called… only to Karin's mortification, it was not her given name being called out, but her nickname.

"Rin! Rin!"

Karin, glancing out from beneath her bonnet brim, saw a large barouche draw as close to the pier as the street would allow, then, before the driver could descend to open the door, it burst open, and what appeared to be a veritable flood of children, small animals, and a bare minimum of adults came spilling out. All of them began scrambling toward her, a formidable wall of humanity, screaming her name.

Karin, had she been made of less sturdy stuff, might have turned tail and run from this familial tidal wave. But she managed to remain calm, and only stepped a little away from Mrs. White, in order to keep that good lady from being knocked over in the sea of arms and legs and upturned faces that soon engulfed Karin.

"Rin!" one of the adults, whom Karin immediately recognized as her mothers sister, her aunt Hisana Kuchiki, flung her arms around her and pulled her into a rib-breaking embrace. "Look at you, all grown up and elegant!"

Elegant Karin supposed she might have looked before that embrace, but she felt her own bonnet slip back from her head just as she was thrust away and held art arm's length by her shoulders while her aunt swiftly assessed her. "

"You're every inch of you your father." Mrs. Kuchiki exclaimed, her purple- eyed gaze sweeping her niece up and down. "I don't see a single hint of Masaki in her, do you, Mr. Kuchiki?"

Karin's uncle Byakuya Kuchiki, who had not thrown himself wildly at her like the rest of his family, had instead stood to one side, sucking on his pipe. Now he only said "Hmmm," and that seemed to be enough to satisfy his wife, who had moved her hands from Karin's shoulders and was now, to Karin's mortification, running them along Karin's arms, through the material of her pelisse.

"Look how thin," Mrs. Kuchiki exclaimed, with what appeared to be a good deal of satisfaction. "Did your uncles not feed you properly? Oh, I knew it was wrong to leave you there with them. I knew it! And your so dark! Why, your tanned dark as a Gypsy! Did your uncles fail to provided you with proper sunshades? And she's so small! Look how small she is Mr. Kuchiki! La, I'd swear she's smaller than Rangiku, and Rangiku was the smallest girl at her school. I could put you in my pocket, my dear, and carry you home! And she's still got her father's eyes, I see. Neither brown nor hazel, but completely gray, as if the lord couldn't make up his mind on the matter. And your hair, Rin, which was brown when we saw you last. It's turned completely black! There's not the slightest chance of you and Rangiku passing as sisters anymore. You're no where alike. Not alike at all!"

While Mrs. Kuchiki had been announcing all of this, Karin was suffering silent throes of agonized embarrassment. It was bad enough to be exclaimed over in such a manner in ones own home, but it was ten times more humiliating for it to occur in public… and particularly in the presence of one Toshiro Hitsugaya. For Captain Hitsugaya, Karin knew_ though she dared not glance his way_ was somewhere about, and was undoubtedly watching the scene with his customary smirk. To hear her aunt's voice shrieking out of her physical flaws like that_ and Karin was very aware that she did have flaws, though she did not consider them quite so serious as her aunt evidently did; she was well aware of her lack of stature, and while she did not think of her self too thin, she knew she was wanting in certain areas where it was in vogue for young ladies to be well padded_ was quite mortifying enough.

But to now that Toshiro Hitsugaya could hear her… Well if Karin could have chosen to expire on the spot, she would have.

Her cheeks, she knew, were glowing beneath her tan, and she no linger had the brim of her bonnet nor her parasol to hide them beneath: her bonnet was hanging by its ribbons around her neck, and her parasol had been knocked from her hand by her aunt's enthusiastic embrace. She could not, even if she wanted to, have raised her gaze to meet Captains Hitsugaya's, because she would not be able to see him, so much were her enthusiastic relations crowding her. Her gown and pelisse were being tugged at by a dozen eager hands, as her young cousins vied one another for her attention. Only one of those cousins did she recognize… indeed, the vast majority of them had not been born when last Karin had seen their parents, and that was her cousin Rukia, who was closest to her own age. It was Rukia with whom a four-year-old Karin, along with their parents, had traveled to India, in order that their mothers, who were sisters, might visit their four brothers, stationed in Jaipur with the British military.

Sadly, it was during that visit that a malarial outbreak had taken the lives of both Karin's parents,, causing Rukia's parents to flee with their daughter back to England, leaving behind a sickly and contagious Karin, who was not expected to survive.

Survive Karin had, however, and no amount of across-the-sea cajoling had been successful in inducing her uncles to send her back to England to live with their sister, who thought it quite unsuitable for a young lady_ particularly the only daughter of the duke of Kurosaki_ to be raised by three young bachelors. It was only now that Karin had reached marriageable age that her mother's brothers had decided to relinquish their guardianship… a decision Karin could not help noting wither growing disgust for and complaints about their sometimes scandalous behavior. For example, she had never been able to get a single one of her uncles to refrain from putting his feet upon a table after a heavy meal.

Karin could only dimly remember her own parents, and recalling the Kuchikis just as vaguely. She had a distant memory of Rukia joining her in a mud-pie-building contest. Now a raven-haired beauty of seventeen, Rukia, Karin could not help noticing, looked perfectly unlikely to take part in any such activity. She had not even deigned to join her family's undignified greeting of their cousin from India. Instead she'd stood a little apart, spinning a parasol in one hand and smiling rather coquettishly. It took a moment or two for Karin to realize whom Rukia was directing a smile toward, and when she did, she felt stunned. Why, it as none other than Captain Hitsugaya at whom Rukia was smiling! And a gentleman, Karin noticed with disgust, was smiling back! It was infuriating, but that was civil and friendly right? Karin supposed she could forgive her. Besides, Karin knew she would not have to put up with the Kuchiki's for very long. As soon as the earl returned from Lisbon, Karin would demand that he procure a special license so that they could be married at once. A fortnight was all she thought she'd be able to bear of her aunt and uncle's hospitality.

Karin smiled at her cousin, the turned her attention to thanking her aunt, whose long monologue concerning Karin's defects had been interrupted by the sight of one of her younger children hauling a small dog about by the neck.

"Aunt Hisana," Karin began, "It's so lovely to see you again. Thank you so much for having me_" "Sojun!" Mrs. Kuchiki snapped. "Put that dog down! How many times have I told you not to hold him by the head? You might kill him!"

Not to be defeated in her attempt to thank her hosts, Karin turned toward her uncle, Mr. Kuchiki, had terrified Karin when she'd been little, due to his gruff uncommunicativeness. He had changed very little in twelve years since she'd last seen him, she soon saw "Harumph" was all he said to her, though she did manage a bow of acknowledgement. The he turned toward Captain Hitsugaya, who stood there a few feet away, and growled, "Welcome back, Hitsugaya. And how did you find Africa?"

Karin was not able to hear Mr. Hitsugaya's reply, because her aunt had started up again.

"Lets get poor Karin home, darlings," she was braying for all the dockhands in London to hear. "She isn't used to English weather, and could easily come down with quinsy if the heavens break, which they seem threatening to do at any moment. And we wouldn't want Cousin Rin with a red sniffling nose, now, would we?" Mrs. Kuchiki let out a laugh that Karin was certain could be heard all the way back to Bombay. "It would frighten away all her suitors!"

Just as Karin was certain she could not possibly feel more humiliated, she heard Toshiro Hitsugaya quip, "Oh, I can think of one or two who wouldn't mind."

Karin shot him an aggrieved look, but saw at once that it didn't do a bit of good. Captain Hitsugaya grinned at her above the heads of her cousins, and continued to do so as she was carried away by them toward the barouche. The last thing she saw, as they pulled away from the Harmony was Mrs. White fluttering a lace handkerchief in her direction, crying, "Oh, good-bye, good-bye, Lady Karin! I shall call upon you next week!" and beside her, Toshiro Hitsugaya, smiling like a Hindi statue of Ginesh.

_Insufferable man!_

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***A/N: Here's the second chapter ill try to do this as a weekly thing but if I go missing for some days I'm either to busy to work on the story or studying. Anyway I hope you liked the extra long chapter lol hope it met your expectations. Until next time!**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

"How lovely it must be to be rich," Rukia Kuchiki said with a sigh, as she held one of Karin's many ball gowns to her shoulders and admired her reflection in the full-length looking glass of the dressing room they were to share during the course of Karin's stay.

A stay that Karin had already decided was going to be very short indeed. The Kuchiki's London town house was quite nice, but with nine children_ nine!_ four dogs, three cats, assorted rabbits, ferrets, and budgies, two parents, a butler, cook, housekeeper, two maids, a nanny, a driver and a stable boy, the place was entirely too crowded for Karin's taste. Already she was longing for the airy villa she and her uncles had shared, with a staff that lived out and only well-mannered dogs or the occasional mongoose_ to kill the cobras that inwardly coiled in the bath_ as pets.

How very different things were in the Kuchiki household! It seemed that Karin could not turn around without stepping on a small child or cat's paw. As if that were not bad enough, the help left a good deal to be desired. Karin could see that she was going to have to take her aunt's staff firmly in hand. She had already resolved that Mariah, the under maid, was going to have to go. In fact, Karin was too concerned over Mariah's less than careful unpacking of her belongings to pay much attention to what her cousin was saying.

"Yes," was how Karin replied to her cousin's statement. To the hapless Mariah, however, who was crushing a very expensive crepe de chine wrapper, Karin said, "That it to be hung, Mariah, not folded."

Rukia, rather like Mariah, paid no attention to Karin's rambling.

"Mama says you've simply thousands of pounds." Rukia pointed one of her toes, and admired the way it peeped out from the ruffle hem of the dress she held. "I with I had thousands of pounds. If I did, I wouldn't stay here when I came to visit London. I would stay in a hotel, and order ices to be brought to me all day long."

"If you ate ices all day, you will become ill. Besides, my uncles wouldn't let me stay in a hotel," Karin said. "They said it wasn't considered proper for young ladies to stay in a hotel without a suitable chaperone. Although in India no one would think twice about it."

"It must be divine," Rukia said, clearly not interested in hearing about India, "To have all the money in the world to buy pretty things. Tell me how many fans do you own?"

"Oh, dozens," Karin said. "It was too hot back in Jaipur. Oh, Mariah, do be careful with that gown. Can't you see it's silk?"

"I only have two fans," Rukia said glumly. "And Sojun ripped one of them. Oh, it isn't fair! You have all the luck_ a fortune, dozens of fans, and delicious Captain Hitsugaya all to your self for weeks and weeks."

That got Karin's full attention, as nothing else her cousin had said. Mariah and her slipshod unpacking skills were forgotten as Karin spun around to stare at Rukia.

"Captain Hitsugaya?" she cried in astonishment.

Rukia nodded dreamily to her reflection in the long mirror. "Isn't he wonderful? I wish Papa had left me behind in India with you back in 'ninety-eight. Then you and I might have sailed back to England together, and had the company of delicious Mr. Hitsugaya morning, noon, and night.

Karin made a retching noise. It wasn't lady like, but she couldn't help it.

Rukia noticed, and raised both her eyebrows in surprise.

"You didn't enjoy Captain Hitsugaya's company during the voyage?" she asked in incredulous tones.

"Hardly!" Karin declared. "Toshiro Hitsugaya is the most contrary gentleman I have ever had the displeasure of meeting!"

Rukia looked shocked, "But he is so exceedingly amiable," she said.

Karin snorted. "Exceedingly rude, impertinent, and offensive, you mean. And if you dare to tell me that he is considered by the ton to be anything like a catch, I shall scream."

"Well he is," Rukia said bluntly, and Karin obliged her by screaming, shrilly enough to cause the ham-handed Mariah nearly to drop the bottle of rose attar she'd been lifting from one of Karin's many trunks.

"But Captain Hitsugaya is all that is gentlemanly," Rukia went on very seriously. "He has business dealings with Papa and frequently stays to dinner_ and often we are fortunate enough to see him quite often. He has been anything but charming. And he is so excessively handsome and droll. And quite wealthy, besides,"

"Wealthy?" Karin rescuing the rose attar looked doubtful. "He's only a naval officer."

"Not at all," Rukia said. "Do you know that ship you sailed the Harmony? Well, Toshiro owns it. He owns the entire Harmony line. It was his father's company, but when he died it all went to Captain Hitsugaya. And he, in a few short years, turned from what was at the time of his father's death_ a bit of a disappointment, I think_ into the quite profitable company it is today. Toshiro Hitsugaya, thanks to his hard work, is quite fantastically rich."

Karin digested this. Toshiro Hitsugaya, fantastically rich? Well, that certainly explained why he'd seemed to feel no compunction about teasing a duke's daughter.

Still, what about those collar points?

"I don't believe it," Karin said finally.

"Believe it," Rukia said. "He has forty or fifty thousand pounds, at least. He s every bit as wealthy as you are, Rin"

Karin sent her cousin a pained look, "Must you call me that?" she asked

"Rin?" Rukia looked mildly startled. "But we've always called you Rin."

"It's Karin," Karin said. "Rin is a child's name. and I'm no longer a child. I am, in fact a nearly married woman."

She slid her gaze toward her cousin to see how she took this news. She was gratified to see an astonished Rukia sucking in her breath.

"What?" Rukia cried, "You're engaged?"

"Indeed I am," Karin said, delighted that she was able to share her news at last. She's been feeling as if she might burst from keeping it to her self. It was a relief to tell someone, even if that someone had the ill judgment to think of Toshiro Hitsugaya as marriageable.

"See, here is his signet ring." Karin held out her hand so that Rukia could examine the gold ring that Karin was forced to wear on her middle finger, and not her third, as it was no longer on her. Mariah, sidling by with her arms full of Karin's under things, also stopped to admire it.

"But this is the crest of the Earl of Sousuke," Rukia cried as she bent to examine the ring. "Oh, Rin! Don't say you are engaged to Aizen Sousuke!"

"Indeed I am," Karin said importantly pleased to see that this news seemed to cause Mariah to treat her pantaloons with more reverence. "I met him on board the ship, and he asked me to marry him three nights ago, just before he disembarked for Lisbon, where he has business." Then she added as an afterthought, "You must promise not to tell anyone, Rukia. You too, Mariah. Lord Sousuke asked that we keep our engagement secret until he returns to Lisbon and can introduce me properly to his mother."

"I'll not say a word, m'lady," Mariah declared staunchly, Rukia was not quick to promise, however.

"Engaged!" Rukia looked stunned. "And to Lord Sousuke! He is so very handsome! And stylish too. Why, I have seen him at Almack's many a time, and never once has he has he worn the same waistcoat. He is a most pleasing gentleman… all that amiable and obliging." Then the pretty face clouded over. "But Rin, you're only sixteen. Will your uncles allow you to marry so young?"

Karin shrugged, "What can they do about it? They're back in India, and im here."

"There is quite a lot they cold do about it," Rukia declared. "They could refuse to allow it. And then you'd have to elope. Nut then they might cut you off! And then what would the two of you live on? For I have heard, Rin that the earl's fortune is not what it once was."

Karin said kindly, "Don't trouble your self on that account, Rukia. My uncles cannot cut me off, for I came into my fortune last year. The money my father left for me is mine to do with what I like. And I know all of Lord Sousuke's lack of wealth. That's why our engagement is such a joy to me. I've always longed for something worthy to do with my wealth." Karin tried to put from her head the uncomfortable memory of Toshiro Hitsugaya saying earlier that day, well, you must be feeling very happy indeed, Miss Bee. Finally a chance to be useful to someone. Such a tiresome young man! "Now I will be able to put my fortune to good use, helping to restore my husband's family to its former place as one of the best in London."

Rukia continued to look dubious. "I don't think Mama will like it, Rin," she said, "Nor Papa, for that matter. In fact, I think it might be my duty as your elder cousin to tell them. You are so young, you know.":

Karin prickled. "Only a year younger than you," she pointed out.

"Still," Rukia said gravely, "There's a great difference between sixteen and seventeen, you know. After all, I've already had a season out, and you haven't. What could you possibly know about men? You've spent the whole time of your life in India!"

Living with three of the most vexing men in the world, who were completely incapable of taking their boot heels off the tabletop, Karin thought crossly to herself. 'What I don't know about men, Miss Rukia, would fit into your thimble with room to spare.'

"Are you saying you don't think Lord Sousuke will make me a good husband?" was what she asked aloud,

"Oh, no," Rukia said. "Not at all. Only that… well, can you really be sure you love him. Rin, at only sixteen?"

Karin, annoyed asked. "Can you really be so sure you love Captain Hitsugaya at only sixteen?"

Rukia blushed prettily. "I did not say I loved him."

"Well, you do an excellent imitation of it. 'He is so handsome and charming and droll.' Were you're words I believe."

Rukia tossed her head until her black curls bounced. "What if I do love him? At least Toshiro Hitsugaya made his own fortune, and won't need to depend on his wife to pay his tailor's bills."

As there was nothing Karin could say in response to the first part of her cousin's remark, she responded only to the second half: "Captain Hitsugaya might think about switching tailor's," Karin snapped, "as his own allowing him to gad about town in scandalously low collar points."

Rukia sucked in her breath. "There is noting wrong with Mr. Hitsugaya's collar points!"

It was on the tip of Karin's tongue to assert that Toshiro Hitsugaya's collar points were as low as her opinion of his character, when it accured to her that it would not do to alienate her cousin. Karin had plans for Rukia. For no sooner had she seen her cousin making eyes at Toshiro Hitsugaya than Karin had decided that he was the last man in the world with whom she could allow her cousin to become involved. Karin intended to find a friend of Lord Sousuke's for Rukia, so that the four of them could summer together at the earl's estate in the Lake District. It was Karin's duty, she knew, to rescue Rukia not only from the obnoxious company of her entirely too large family, but from Toshiro Hitsugaya as well.

And so Karin swallowed down her ire and said in the sweetest voice imaginable, "Of course there's nothing wrong with Captain Hitsugaya's collar points. I was only teasing. Let's not quarrel, Rukia."

Rukia did not look inclined to stop quarreling. Not, it turned out, did she seem inclined to keep her mouth shut on the subject of Karin's engagement.

"It just feels wrong," she said, "hiding something like this from Mama."

Karin glanced at the gown Mariah happened to be unfolding from the last of her trunks.

"You know," Karin said slyly, "I probably wont be staying long beneath your father's roof, Rukia, soon Lord Sousuke and I will marry, and I'll go away to live with him. Which is too bad, because I was just thinking what fun it was going to be, living with another woman? I've never done it, you know… not since my mother died. I was thinking what a jolly time we'll have, staying up late gossiping, and trying each other's clothes. If you like something of mine, you know, you need only ask to borrow it, and it's yours for as long as you like. That gown you were admiring in the mirror, for instance. Wouldn't you like to wear it to dinner tonight?"

In half a second, Rukia's expression turned from mulish to wistful.

"That gown?" she said, "I really might wear it? You wouldn't mind?"

"Not at all," Karin said, "But you'll have to take the fan that goes with it. It's the blue feathered one, Mariah, the one you just put in the top drawer."

Mariah pulled out the aforementioned fan and presented it to Rukia with a curtsy. "Twill go with your eyes, miss," she said obsequiously. And Karin began to sense that there might be some hope for Mariah after all.

And hope for Rukia as well, Karin decided later, when, garbed in borrowed finery, her cousin made such a splash when she entered the dining room. Mrs. Kuchiki, fearing_ wrongly, of course_ that Karin would be too fatigued from her long sea voyage to wish to go out her first night in London, had arranged for a quiet family dinner_ though Mrs. Kuchiki's idea of quiet and Karin's castrated sharply. Quiet, to Karin, meant shutting all the little Kuchiki's up in their nursery so that the adults could eat in relative peace.

Quiet, to Mrs. Kuchiki, however, appeared simply to mean that no outside guests had been invited to dine with the family.

And so when Karin and Rukia, summoned by Rikichi, the butler, appeared in the dining room, it was to observe young Miyuki and Mai leading their brothers in a mad dash around the table, Rurichiyo swinging from the portieres and Sojun dragging the unfortunate kitten about by the scruff of its neck with its teeth, in an apparent imitation of "kitty". It was a testament to Rukia's beauty_ or perhaps to Karin's dressmaker back in Jaipur_ that the sight of their sister in the borrowed blue gown caused all such activity to cease. Sojun even dropped the kitten, who scampered, with much foresight for so young creature, up the portieres, and thus out of reach of her pint-sized tormentor.

"Rukia!" cried Miyako who was closest to Rukia in age, being fourteen and very aware of the fact that she was well on her way to being as pretty as her elder sister. "You look like a princess!"

Mr. Kuchiki said nothing except, "What, tureen beef again?" after a glance into the chafing dish, but Mrs. Kuchiki was full of compliments for her daughter.

"Such lovely gown!" she cried. "It goes so well with your eyes, my dear. It is very generous of your cousin to loan it to you. It might look well, if dear Rin will loan it to you again, at Dame Ashforth's cotillion next week. Take care not to spill anything on it tonight and ruin it."

"I won't. Mama," Rukia murmured demurely, and Karin knew that her secret_ the one concerning her engagement_ was safe. She was feeling very smug _ though not at all pleased with the Kuchiki's cook, who seemed to put very little actual beef in her tureen of beef. Karin saw at once that she and cook were going to have some words_ when Rikichi appeared at the door way and announced, "Captain Hitsugaya."

Karin very nearly dropped her spoon. Captain Hitsugaya? Captain Hitsugaya? Hadn't she just left him_ with hopes that it would be forever_ at the docks? What on her was he doing here, at her aunts and uncles house, just a few hours later?

"Hmmph," her uncle said, not doing a tidy job with his napkin, "Show him in, show him in."

"Hurrah," cried Sojun, upsetting his bowl with a stray elbow. "Uncle Toshiro is here!"

Uncle Toshiro? Karin could not imagine that her evening could get any worse. Was she ever to be free of the company of this obnoxious man?

A few seconds later he appeared in the door way in a fresh waist coat and shirt, his boots highly shined as ever… but his collar points two inches lower than they ought to have been. The children_ a clearly undisciplined brood_ leaped from there seats at the sight of him, and surged forward in a wall of beaming faces and beef-tureened hands, crying, "Uncle Toshiro, Uncle Toshiro!"

Captain Hitsugaya managed quickly to extricate himself, however, by producing a bag and declaring, "Yes, it's me. It's good to see all of you again. And look what I've brought you from Africa!"

The children left off clinging to his coat and fell upon the bag instead, like a pack of ravenous vultures, Clever of him! Karin could not help thinking, and wished she had such a bag upon the pier, with which she might've defended herself against the Kuchiki horde. Toshiro Hitsugaya free at last, turned his bright eyed gaze upon the four adults left at the table_ five if you counted Kiyone, who evidently decided herself too old to leap upon the bag like her younger siblings, but who never the less was eyeing it with undisguised curiosity.

"Good evening," the young captain said, bowing politely toward Mrs. Kuchiki, Rukia and Karin. "So sorry to interrupt your dinner. It was good of you to invite me in."

"Nonsense!" Mr. Kuchiki said gruffly, "Sit down and eat."

"Yes, do, Toshiro," Mrs. Kuchiki beseeched him, "That's if your mother can spare you. I don't want her to be put out with me, stealing you away your first night back in town after so ling a voyage."

"My mother has gone to the opera," Captain Hitsugaya said, "She did not know I was to arrive today, and did not feel she could give such fine seats."

"Then you're orphaned for the night!" Mrs. Kuchiki cried, "And so it is my duty to feed you! Sit, sit, do. There is plenty for everyone."

"In that case,"- Mr. Hitsugaya dropped into the chair that Rikichi had placed at the table for him- "I shall be happy too. There is nothing I enjoy better, as im sure you know, Mrs. Kuchiki, than your fine cook's tureen of beef."

Karin shot the young captain a look of complete disbelief over her own bowl of watery stuff. She had always thought there was something a little off about Toshiro Hitsugaya, but now she began to feel that perhaps he was actually mad. He was either mad or he was dissembling, because there was nothing in the least bit excellent about the Kuchiki's cook's tureen of beef.

Then Toshiro Hitsugaya did something that confirmed Karin's belief that he was not wholly sound in the head.

He winked at her! Across the dining table!

She was certain he winked only because he knew as well as she did that the tureen of beef was terrible. Unfortunately, however, Rukia caught the wink and misinterpreted it, flinging Karin an accusing look. As if, after everything Karin had said upstairs, there was the slightest chance she had designs on Captain Hitsugaya!

If Captain Hitsugaya noticed Rukia's hostile glance in Karin's direction, he did not indicate it. Instead he said to the older girl, "Miss Kuchiki, that's a lovely gown you have this evening. I don't believe I've seen it on you before."

Rukia seemed instantly to forget her antipathy toward Karin, and simpered in the young captain's direction. "Why, thank you, Captain."

It's not hers," young Sojun announced from the floor, where he and his brothers sat, sorting through the items they'd found at the bottom of the bag Captain Hitsugaya had dropped, which included, if their appreciative cries were to be believed, shrunken heads and monkey's paws, though Karin highly doubted and actual shrunken head would have been allowed through customs.

"It's Cousin Rin's."

Rukia instantly turned a deep shade of umber, and Karin uttered a quick and silent prayer of thanks to the Lord for taking her parents before they'd had a chance to provide her with siblings.

"Ah," Captain Hitsugaya said. "I see, Cousin Rin's. And I trust Cousin Rin is finding London to her liking?"

Karin longed to dash her tureen of beef in the man's lap. Instead she nearly said, "It's been tolerable_ thus far," and hoped he took the thus far to mean up until his arrival at the Kuchiki's dinner table, which was precisely how she'd intended it.

If captain Hitsugaya got her meaning however, he gave no indication. Instead he picked up the glass of Madeira that Rikichi had poured for him, and rose it in Karin's direction "I'd like to declare a toast," he said. "To the charming Lady Karin."

"Hear, hear," cried Mrs. Kuchiki, raising her glass as well. "We are so delighted to have you back in England at last, my child. It's been too, too long."

Mr. Kuchiki said nothing but "Harrumph," and lowered his glass again.

But young Captain Hitsugaya was not finished.

"May she take London by storm," he went on, still gazing steadily at Karin. Who, with a sudden sinking feeling, narrowed her eyes at him in warning. It was a warning however, that the young man did not heed. "And not forget us when she is, as I understand, she is soon to become the new lady Sousuke."

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**A/N: yay! Finally updated! I know it took me way too long to update but here it is and this story will be my main priority for now. And while I have not been updating I've been writing the next few chapters for this story so please be looking forward to them! But I don't think they'll be out anytime soon though. So please Review and tell me what you thought in the mean time! They always make my day! ;) And again sorry for the uber late update…**

**~Until Next Time!**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter four

"You did it on purpose," Karin said accusingly.

"I swear I didn't," Captain Hitsugaya said with a careless laugh that infuriated her all the more.

"Don't swear," Karin said with a sniff. "It isn't polite."

"Well, then, I promise you I didn't."

Toshiro Hitsugaya was looking infuriatingly cool and collected. How dare he look so calm, when Karin was simmering over with anger at him?

Well, he wouldn't look half so cocksure by the time Karin was through with him. It had been remarkably stupid of him to ask her to dance, knowing full well that she was still put out with him for revealing her secret engagement to her aunt and uncle. Perhaps he'd thought because a full week had gone by since the incident, that her ire might be at its ebb. Foolish man! Karin had once managed to stay angry at her uncle Urahara for a full a month, and that had been only because he'd used one of her best shawls to wipe down his pistols after a duel.

Captain Hitsugaya, on the other hand, had ruined Karin's life.

This was not, Karin felt, an exaggeration, either. Since his thoughtless announcement that night at dinner, Karin's existence had turned into a living nightmare. Her aunt would not leave her alone on the subject of her engagement. Every time Karin turned around, it seemed, all she heard was Lord Sousuke this, and Lord Sousuke that. How Karin wished Lord Sousuke would hurry up and get home from Lisbon, so that she might appeal to him to have a word with her relations-or at the very least, convince him to elope at once, and remove her from their company forever. For they were driving her to distraction with their petty admonishments and concerns.

What business was it of theirs anyway whom she chose to marry? If she wanted to marry an Indian fakir, who were they to try to stop her? For heaven's sake, her uncles had sent her to England with instructions to find a husband. Well, she'd found one... and a more exemplary groom simply did not exist. Lord Sousuke was everything that was gentlemanly and admirable-intelligent, polite, attentive, and very, very handsome.

So what was the problem?

"You've only known each other a few months," was Karin's aunt's lament. But a few months was a great deal longer than many couples knew each other before taking their vows. Why, in India, more often than not a bride did not even meet her husband to be until their wedding day! And here Karin had spent three whole months at sea getting to know hers! No, "You've only known each other a few months." was no sort of argument.

Her aunt, Karin knew, was only put out because she had managed to get a husband before Rukia had. Which wasn't entirely fair, because Rukia had only her pretty face to recommend her, and no fortune to speak of. Karin was perfectly aware that a part of Aizen's attraction to her was her inheritance. She did not blame him for it. Men had to eat, too, same as women.

But she also knew that, had she been horse-faced or even, God forbid, chocolate-headed, Lord Sousuke would not have taken the time to learn of her fortune. He would have dismissed her out of hand. No, her money made things easier, certainly, but it was her person first, and then her purse, that Aizen Sousuke had found so attractive.

And what was wrong with that? What was a marriage if not a business transaction? Karin could not help thinking that the Indian way of courtship and marriage made more sense than the way the English went about it. In India parents decided, often at birth, whom their children would marry. When the boy and girl came of age, certain transactions ensued, generally involving goods of some sort. Some girls were worth many goods, some only a few. After these transactions, the couple was joined in holy matrimony, and everyone went home with their allotted goods, and that was that.

In England, it was entirely more complicated. No marital arrangements were made on the part of the children's parents at all. Instead, mothers and fathers kept their daughters tucked out of sight until their sixteenth or seventeenth birthdays, at which point they were suddenly pushed into society-something Karin had learned was called a girl's "coming out," or "first season"-and paraded in front of the marriageable bachelors who happened to be in town and not back at their country estates, still shooting grouse, as they'd been doing all winter. The single men then decided which of these many girls they liked, and then from there, which girl had the largest dowry.

The English style of courtship seemed perfectly barbaric-and unfair to the girls, Karin felt. For what if a girl were not attractive, or poor? Who would want to marry her then? Perhaps the worst part of the English courtship rituals, Karin learned soon after her arrival on English soil, was something called Kutsuzawa's. Held by the infamous Giriko, and was nothing more than a series of large rooms in which everyone who was anyone in London society gathered every Wednesday night in order to dance and show off their new spring wardrobe. Kutsuzawa's was, to Karin, a nightmarish crush of humanity. It made her long for the airy and open market squares of Jaipur, which held occasional festivals, when it was not monsoon season, at which everyone from neighboring villages showed up. How she missed the sparkling saris, the fire-eaters, the highly spiced savories!

There were no fire-eaters, and not even a single elephant.

The utter lack of other diversion made the presence of Toshiro Hitsugaya surprisingly welcome. He did not, according to her cousin Rukia, come often to Kutsuzawa's. But upon Karin's first visit to the place, there he was, looking very well in evening dress, though his collar points were still distressingly low-the lowest in the room, in fact. Karin had thrown her cousin a significant look upon noticing them, as if to say, See? What was I telling you? No respect for fashion whatsoever.

Still, unfashionable collar points or not, Captain Hitsugaya greeted both girls very cordially, and asked each of them for a dance-to Rukia's delight, and Karin's disgust. If Toshiro Hitsugaya thought that she was going to meekly forget the humiliation he'd put her through the week before, he was in for a rude shock.

"You knew I hadn't yet told my aunt and uncle about my engagement to Lord Sousuke." Karin said as Toshiro Hitsugaya took her hand for the dance she'd promised him. "Admit it. You were hoping to cause a scene."

"Which I did," Captain Hitsugaya said, not even attempting to hide his happy smile at the memory of Karin's aunt falling into a swoon and her daughters' attempts to revive her. Karin's uncle's reaction had not been nearly as satisfying. He had merely called for Rikichi to bring him a whiskey.

"Well, I don't think it's anything to be proud of," Karin said severely. "You put the entire house into an uproar."

"I didn't," Toshiro said. "You're the one who wanted to marry a man your family doesn't approve of, not me. I just informed them of the fact. It doesn't do any good to kill the messenger."

"My family doesn't disapprove of Lord Sousuke," Karin informed him. "It's my marrying so soon after my arrival that they don't like. Not that there's anything they can do about it."

Toshiro lifted a single white brow. "Isn't there?"

Karin gave a haughty toss of her head. "Hardly! What can they do? They don't hold my purse strings; I do. I can do as I like."

"And what you like," Toshiro said, "is to marry Aizen Sousuke. A man you hardly know."

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" Karin shook her head in wonder. "I know him very well indeed. I was with him for a month longer than I was with you on the Harmony, you'll remember."

"As if I could forget," Toshiro said obliquely. Then he demanded, "And just what was Lord Sousuke, a gentleman whom I understand is in some financial straits, doing in Bombay, anyway? Did you ever bother asking him that?"

"Of course I did," Karin said. "Lord Sousuke was seeing to the sale of some property left to him by a distant relation."

"In India?"

"That's correct." Karin wondered why she was bothering to explain her fiancé's business affairs to this man, who was not even a relation, but seemed to harbor some sort of absurd proprietary feelings toward her just the same. "And now he's off to Lisbon to spend the proceeds buying back some family portraits that he was forced to part with a few years ago, when he was in somewhat different financial straits."

Toshiro Hitsugaya looked disgusted. "Good Lord," he said. "And you really want to marry this guy? It seems he can barely manage to keep his personal affairs in order."

"Of course he can't," Karin said. "That's why he needs me."

"To pay his bills, you mean," Toshiro said, rudely.

"To help him organize his life," Karin corrected him.

But she instantly regretted her unguarded words when Toshiro Hitsugaya let out a bark of laughter, and cried, "Good Lord, I'd almost forgotten. Of course a guy like that would appeal to a busy bee like you. Why, he needs no end of improving."

Karin leveled a very meaningful gaze at Toshiro Hitsugaya's collar points and said, "I can think of a few things I'd like to improve about you ."

"It all makes sense now." Toshiro did not seem to have noticed the direction of her gaze, nor heard her remark. "The Aizen Sousuke of the world are irresistible to all little Miss Bees like you. Tell me, where did you intend to start with him? His finances, of course, are in lamentable condition. But if I were you, I'd begin with his mother. I understand she's quite a gorgon."

"I'll tell you where I'd start with you," Karin piped up. "You need to learn to keep your-"

"Ah, no," Toshiro said, lifting a warning finger. "You and I are not engaged. I have not paid for the privilege of one of your improving speeches-elucidating as I am sure they must be. You will have to save your lectures for me until such time as you are unattached again."

"Well," Karin began, feeling more vexed with him than ever, "then you will have to wait forever, for I plan never to be unattached again."

Toshiro, thought the dance abruptly finished, forgot to bow in response to Karin's curtsy. Instead he just stood there looking down at her with a very astonished expression on his face.

"What?" he said, seemingly quite unaware that all the other couples save themselves were moving from the dance floor. "You still intend to go through with it?"

"With what?" Karin thought that, for all he was in charge of a shipping line worth many thousands of pounds, Toshiro was rather dim. "My wedding to Lord Sousuke? Why, certainly. I think I already informed you of that."

"But... but your aunt and uncle," Toshiro stammered. "I saw the way they reacted to the news. Surely they can't... they haven't given you permission to wed him."

"Of course they haven't." Really, but Karin almost felt sorry for Toshiro Hitsugaya. He was not taking the information that his little scheme of ruining her future had failed at all well. Karin, herself a habitual schemer, had learned to take her own foiled plots in stride. "But I don't need their permission to marry. I am of age, and can do as I like. They don't approve, but they can't stop me."

"Then you are still engaged to him?" Toshiro demanded. "And intend to remain so?"

"Indeed," Karin said. "Why shouldn't I?"

"Because Aizen Sousuke," Toshiro blurted, "is a rogue!"

Slander! Karin had never heard such a blatant lie in her life. And she doubted that Kutsuzawa's had ever played host to such libel, as well, at least if the way everyone was staring at them as they stood nose-to-nose-well, Karin's nose to the captain's chest, to be perfectly truthful-in the center of the room was any indication.

"A rogue!" Karin echoed scathingly. "I like that! If that's true, what, pray, do you call yourself, Captain?"

"A concerned friend," Toshiro replied from between gritted teeth.

"Ha!" Karin laughed in his face. "And what kind of friend, Captain Hitsugaya, goes about trying to destroy another person's one chance at happiness?"

"If Aizen is your one chance at happiness," Toshiro said in a snarl, "then I'm a concerned man!"

Karin narrowed her eyes at him. "In that case, your monkey seems to be missing," she informed him.

"This," Toshiro Hitsugaya said, suddenly turning away from her and striding from the dance floor, "is intolerable. Where is your uncle?"

Karin, aware of all the stares they were attracting, hurried after the captain, having to run a little in order to keep up with his long, manly strides.

"What do you want my uncle for?" she asked curiously. "I already told you, he can't stop me from marrying whom I like."

"Ha," Toshiro said with a certain amount of scorn. "We'll see about that."

Very interested in this turn of events, Karin trailed after him, not noticing that Rukia was tagging along as well until she heard her call her name.

"Rin!"

Karin turned her head and saw Rukia tripping along beside her.

"Oh," Karin said. "Hello."

"What is happening?" Rukia wanted to know. "What were you and the captain arguing about out on the dance floor? Everyone was looking! I was so embarrassed for you."

"Just Lord Sousuke," Karin informed her cousin with a shrug.

"Lord Sousuke?" Rukia, resplendent in another gown she'd borrowed from Karin, looked more

beautiful than ever, in spite of the wilting heat of the crowded room. "Oh, dear. Captain Hitsugaya dislikes him so."

"I know it," Karin said. "He is going to have words with your father. He thinks there is something Uncle Byakuya can do to prevent me marrying Aizen."

Rukia reached out to grip Karin's arm, keeping her from flying after the agitated young ship captain.

"He what?" She demanded rather loudly.

"He thinks he can stop me from marrying Lord Sousuke," Karin explained. Heavens, but her cousin was slow to understand the simplest things sometimes. "Come along, Rukia. If we don't hurry, we'll miss all the fun!"

"Fun!" Rukia looked as stunned as if Karin had pinched her. "Is that what you think it is? Fun? "

Karin, eager as she was not to miss a moment of what promised to be an amusing spectacle-Captain Hitsugaya rebuking her uncle, that is-could not help but notice a spark of anger in her cousin's violet eyes.

"Why, Rukia," she said, wondering what on earth could have upset her cousin now. For Rukia, Karin had discovered during her week long sojourn with the Kuchiki's, had a volatile temper, and was somewhat prone to dramatics. "Whatever is the matter?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Rukia snapped.

Karin could only ascertain, from the high color in the other girl's face, that she was in some sort of physical discomfort. Accordingly, Karin asked solicitously, "Are your stays too tight? I warned Mariah-"

"No!" Rukia grew even more red-faced at the mention of her corset. "Good heavens, Rin, are you completely dense? Can't you see what's happening?"

Karin blinked. "I guess not," she said. "I suppose you'd better tell me."

Rukia stamped a slippered foot. "Oh, you are the most infuriating girl! Can't you see? He's in love with you!"

Karin blinked some more. "Who is?"

"Captain Hitsugaya!"

* * *

**A/N: I am really happy at how this chapter came out :) lol. So please review! And thank you for taking your time reading this ridiculously long chapter :D**


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

Karin let out a merry laugh.

"Oh, Rukia," she cried. "You are droll. Stop joking now, and let's go watch the captain and your father. It's sure to be diverting."

"I'm not joking," Rukia said, tightening her fingers on Karin's arm so that her grip actually began to hurt. "Captain Hitsugaya is in love with you!"

"Rukia." Karin, seeing now that her cousin was perfectly serious, tried her best not to smile. It wouldn't do, she knew, to laugh too hard at Rukia, who was a serious sort of girl. Still, it was amusing. The idea of Captain Hitsugaya, who could never seem to look at Karin without seeing-and then commenting upon-a fault, being in love with her! Ha, what a joke!

What wasn't a joke, however, was how Rukia seemed to feel. The older girl was angry-really angry-and Karin supposed she couldn't blame her. The captain's behavior was infuriating... especially because it was so peculiar. Toshiro Hitsugaya didn't care for her at all.

But Karin supposed she could see how Rukia might misinterpret his motivation. Which only made her more convinced than ever that she needed to find a gentleman more deserving of her cousin's ardor than the horrid Toshiro Hitsugaya

"Captain Histugaya is hardly in love with me," Karin explained patiently. "If anything he despises me, and has made his contempt perfectly well known."

"If he isn't in love with you, why does he care so much about whether or not you marry?" Rukia wanted to know.

"Captain Hitsugaya doesn't care whether or not I marry," Karin replied as calmly as she could. Really, but romantic, imaginative girls like Rukia were such a lot of work. Karin was quite glad she had no imagination to speak of, and could turn her mind to practical things, like financial planning and household management. "He just doesn't want me to marry Lord Sousuke."

"Because he's jealous!"

"Because Captain Hitsugaya has some sort of absurd prejudice against Lord Sousuke," Karin said. "I don't know why. It has something to do with poor Lord Souskue not having any money. He went so far as to call him a rogue."

Rukia looked suitably shocked. "He didn't!"

"He did. Which, if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is."

"Oh, Rin," Rukia said, her indigo eyes wide as forget-me-nots. "Captain Hitsugaya is as far from being a rogue as... well, as Papa is!"

"Suit yourself," Karin said, unwilling to raise her cousin's ire any more than it already was by strenuously disagreeing, as she would have liked to. Really, but she would have to find a nice young man, and soon, for Rukia to fall in love with, or she would never hear the end of Captain Hitsugaya. "Honestly, Rukia, you really needn't bother your head about Captain Hitsugaya and me. We are quite thorough enemies. Why, I believe he hates me every bit as much as I hate him."

This mollified Rukia only slightly.

"It does seem as if he hates you," she admitted grudgingly, "the way he is always criticizing you. Like last week at dinner, when he laughed at your idea that women should be allowed to run military operations from Whitehall."

"There," Karin said, though she did not find that memory quite as comforting as Rukia evidently did. She quite fancied that, if only the British Empire would recognize her superior organizational skills, she could handily settle a half dozen of its most pressing foreign conflicts by teatime. Still, she stifled her protest and said, "You see? If he were in love with me, would he have laughed quite so hard?"

"No," Rukia admitted. "And I once heard the captain telling Mama that he prefers quiet, sensitive girls like me. Everyone knows you aren't in the least sensitive."

Karin, who thought that sensitive was really just a polite way to describe girls who were incapable of taking care of themselves, was not surprised to hear that the captain liked young ladies of this particular bent. He seemed the type of fellow to prefer a girl who fainted at the sight of blood, as Karin was certain Rukia would, to one who would calmly stanch its flow with a pocket handkerchief, as Karin had done the time her uncle Asuka accidentally ran his bayonet through his big toe.

"Er," she said. "Yes. So don't you see, Rukia? Captain Hitsugaya can't possibly be in love with me."

"But if that's so," Rukia said with a final suspicious glance, "why is he always looking at you? Because he is, Rin. Whenever he thinks you aren't looking he stares and stares. He did it at supper, and he's been doing it here all night long. Even when he was dancing with me, he kept looking across the room at you!"

Karin laid a comforting hand upon her cousin's puffed sleeve.

"Of course he did," she said kindly. "Because he's wondering how on earth two cousins could be more different. I'm sure he's looking at me and asking himself, Now why can't Lady Karin be more like her pretty cousin Miss Kuchiki? Miss Kuchiki would never allow her perfect china-white skin to get so brown in the sun. Miss Kuchiki would never tell her maid that if she caught her folding instead of hanging her silk gowns again, she'd dismiss her. Miss Kuchiki would never reduce Cook to tears with her scathing indictment of her tureen of beef."

Rukia's scowl brightened. "Goodness, I never thought of it like that. You're quite right, Rin. Captain Hitsugaya couldn't possibly be in love with you. You are so very interfering."

This wasn't entirely what Karin wanted to hear, but at least her cousin had stopped glaring so balefully at her, which was a definite relief. "Champion," Karin said. "Now let's go see what your father says when Toshiro Hitsugaya asks him why he hasn't forbidden me from marrying Lord Souskue."

Though Rukia put up a token resistance-it wasn't right, she said, to spy upon gentlemen, particularly her own father-Karin managed eventually to drag her across the room, causing quite a stir and no small amount of head-shaking from the gallery of matrons who observed this unorthodox behavior in the hallowed rooms of Kutsuzawa's. The general opinion of the matrons-and throughout London-seemed to be that Lady Karin Kurosaki was rather a handful. The majority of the society matrons felt quite sorry for Hisana Kuchiki, who'd been put in charge of the headstrong girl.

But at the same time they couldn't help rather envying Rukia's mother, because Karin's handling of the Kuchiki's' cook had already become the stuff of legend. The description of Karin's ashen complexion when presented with tureen of beef a second night in a row had made its way through London's finest kitchens, eventually trickling upstairs from the servants' quarters and into the boudoirs of Mayfair's finest hostesses. Her quiet request to be excused, her subsequent trip through the baize door and down to the kitchen, her polite but firm instructions to the Kuchiki's cook that never-never-was she to serve tureen of beef in that household again, or she would be made to suffer the consequences, had caused many a cook who had for years terrorized her employers with threats to quit if her food was criticized to quake with terror. Already the warning had been passed from cook to cook throughout the land: only those with a stout heart and a steady hand with a basting brush need apply for work in the household of the new Lady Sousuke.

No one blamed Hisana, of course, for her niece's reputation. The young lady was an orphan, after all, and had had the misfortune of having been raised in India like a little heathen, since for all intents and purposes, her uncles had ignored her until she grew too strident in her criticism of them for them not to pay attention. Then they had promptly shipped her off for their poor sister to deal with. Such a pity, too, because her dearly departed mother had been such a great beauty, such a gentle creature... so gentle, in fact, that she was quite hopeless with the help...

Sadly, Toshiro's speech was just winding down as Karin and her cousin approached.

"At best, sir, your niece will be dragged down to his level," the captain was pontificating. "At worst, her reputation will be ruined, and she won't be able to show her face in a single decent household in all of London."

Karin bitterly regretted having missed the beginning of this speech. It sounded quite a good one.

"Er," Rukia's father was heard to reply. "Um. Ah."

"Show some spirit, Uncle Kuchiki," Karin urged him, with enthusiasm. "Tell him to save his breath to cool his porridge."

But her uncle only turned very red in the face, muttered something about going in search of punch, and departed. Toshiro Hitsugaya turned to Karin with blazing eyes- really blazing, the way a tiger's eyes blazed just as it was set to pounce-and said in a very deep and commanding voice, "If your family won't do anything to keep you from making this excessively foolish match, Lady Karin, I can assure you I will."

"Oh, Captain Hitsugaya," Rukia said, batting her eyelashes worshipfully at the young captain. Really, but Karin was going to have to put an end to this absurd fixation of her cousin's very soon indeed. "It is so kind of you to take such an interest in my cousin's welfare."

It was at that point that Toshiro Hitsugaya, who'd seemed livid with rage, appeared to remember himself, and, dropping the furious gaze, looked a bit ashamed... as well he ought, thought Karin with some satisfaction.

"Your concern for my future is much appreciated," she said, a little let down that this, then, were all the fireworks to which they were to be treated. "But I can assure you, you have nothing to fear. I am quite capable of making my own decisions, Captain. I have been doing so all my life, you know."

Captain Hitsugaya only shook his head. "There are dangers here in England you've never dreamed of, my lady. And I'm not talking about scorpions or quicksand. Or," he added even more ominously, "tureen of beef two nights in a row."

This sounded thrillingly portentous... enough so that Karin's pulse quickened, and she leaned toward Toshiro eagerly.

"What do you mean?" she asked breathlessly. "Captain Hitsugaya, do you know something about my fiancé that I don't?"

But Toshiro crushed her hopes of finding out that Lord Sousuke had a hidden deformity or a mad twin brother with whom he occasionally traded places by saying curtly, "Only that he is not a man of honor."

This was such a disappointing response that Karin rolled her eyes. "Is that all?" she asked.

"Isn't that enough?" Captain Hitsugaya demanded, his white brows furrowed.

Rukia, who'd been standing nearby the whole time, piped up with, "It is a very serious accusation, Rin. I am certain it is not one the captain would make lightly."

"I'm sure you are right," Karin said, so as not to hurt her cousin's feelings. She was not, however, the least impressed by the captain's warning. Why, her uncles had often accused men under their command of being less than honorable. But these charges almost always turned out to stem from the dullest of crimes, such as not keeping their mistresses in very high style, or failing to see their horses properly watered after a long ride. Karin supposed the captain had some equally boring charge to lay at the feet of the earl, and in truth, she could not have been less interested in hearing it.

"La," she said when she felt enough time had passed that Rukia and Captain Hitsugaya would think her suitably chastened. "Shall we go pitch biscuits out the window at the dogs?" For this seemed to Karin the most entertaining activity that Kutsuzawa's had to offer thus far. She'd noticed some of the younger boys engaged in it, and quite envied them.

Rukia and Toshiro Hitsugaya exchanged meaningful glances.

"Rin," Rukia said, "I don't think you quite understand what the captain is trying to tell you."

Karin rolled her eyes again. Lord, what was wrong with the English? They did go on and on about things- but not the right kinds of things. Really, if it hadn't been for Karin, the Kuchiki's might have had tureen of beef seven nights a week and not uttered a peep about it. But about something as trivial as whom she was to marry, no one seemed capable of remaining silent.

It was all Captain Hitsugaya's fault, of course. Odious man! Karin was going to have to find someone new for Rukia to love, and posthaste. She noticed a promising-looking fair-haired young man standing a little ways away, saw with approval that his collar points were high, and tossed her fan surreptitiously in his direction, then exclaimed, looking down at her bare wrist in horror, "My fan! Oh, Rukia! I've lost my fan!"

Rukia, always highly sensitive to calamities such as these, immediately lifted her hem and glanced about the floor.

"You had it a moment ago," she said reassuringly. "I'm almost certain."

"Oh, if it's trodden upon," Karin wailed, "I shall be sick! Positively sick!"

She was aware that Captain Hitsigaya was watching her with a very skeptical expression on his face, one light eyebrow lifted with the other furrowed disapprovingly. But she steadfastly ignored him, keeping her gaze on the floor as she "searched" for her fan.

"Is this what you're looking for, my lady?" asked the fair-haired gentleman with a smile as he held out Karin's fan, which he'd bent and retrieved from where it had fallen at his feet.

"Oh, there it is!" Rukia cried gladly. "And look, Rin, it isn't a bit trodden on."

Karin accepted her fan with a grateful glance in the auburn-haired gentleman's direction. "You are too kind, sir," she said. "It is good to know that there are some gentlemen left in England." She shot a dark look in Toshiro's direction. "Might I know the name of my chivalrous rescuer?"

The auburn-haired gentleman blushed charmingly.

"Kurosaki, my lady," he said. "Ichigo Kurosaki."

Karin stared at him wide-eyed, "Kurosaki? Don't tell me we're related." he passed her a charming smile, "I assure you my lady, we are not, in anyway, related."

She let out a sigh of relief, "Then, how lovely to make your acquaintance, Mr. Kurosaki," Karin said, relieved that Ichigo Kurosaki proved to have neither a lisp nor a stutter. He would, she decided, do very nicely for Rukia, as Karin, who had a quick eye, observed that Mr. Ichigo Kurosaki wore a signet ring, but no wedding band, upon his finger, meaning that he was in possession of some fortune, but not a wife. "I, of course, am Lady Karin Kurosaki, and this is my cousin, Miss Rukia Kuchiki." Rukia curtsied prettily in response to Ichigo's bow. "Oh," Karin added with deliberate indifference, "and this is Captain Toshiro Hitsugaya."

Ichigo Kurosaki clicked his heels together smartly upon his introduction to Toshiro Hitsugaya, but his gaze was, Karin saw with approval, on Rukia, who really did look very beautiful indeed in her borrowed finery.

"She likes opera and the works of Sir Walter Scott," Karin whispered to Mr. Kurosaki, under pretense of flicking a piece of lint from the young man's broad shoulder.

Ichigo proved he was as quick as he was handsome, since the next words out of his mouth were, "You would not happen to be familiar with The Lay of the Minstrel, would you, Miss Kuchiki? For there is a point in it these fellows here and I find sorely perplexing..."

Karin saw that her cousin looked very pleased indeed, but did not hear how she responded, since Toshiro Hitsugaya leaned down and said, very distinctly, in her ear, "Witch."

Karin had no choice but to take umbrage at this unfair assessment of her character.

"I beg your pardon, sir," she said with a sniff. "But I don't know what you mean."

"You manage your relations the way Napoleon manages his troops," Toshiro said, not entirely without approval.

Karin flicked open her fan. "Nonsense," she said, fanning herself energetically, though still keeping a careful eye on her cousin and her new admirer.

"Are the Kuchiki's even aware," Toshiro wanted to know, "of how you've twisted their lives about to suit your own? I understand their cook is terrified to serve anything but lobster turbot-which, if I recall rightly, was your favorite dish back on the Harmony -and that the younger Kuchiki's have actually begun acting like little ladies and gentlemen because you promised if they'd behave themselves to buy them a live monkey."

"I can't even begin to imagine what you're talking about," Karin said airily.

"I suppose that's your plan with Aizen Sousuke," Toshiro said. "You intend to turn him into an automaton, the way you have the Kuchiki children."

"Automaton?" Karin echoed with a snort. "Be your age, Captain. What on earth would Lord Sousuke do with a monkey? What nonsense."

"It isn't nonsense," Toshiro said. Something about his gaze, as he stared down at her, began to make Karin feel distinctly uncomfortable. Toshiro Hitsugaya's teal eyes were entirely too knowing-and too bright-for Karin's peace of mind. Why, the way he looked at her, she felt almost as if... well, as if he could read her mind! Read her mind, or see down her bodice, she didn't know which. Either way, his stare was making her feel as if the room were too hot-it was-and her corset stays too tight- they weren't. How curious that a man she despised as thoroughly as Karin despised Captain Hitsugaya could make her feel so... well, vulnerable.

A second later she was certain he could read her mind when he warned, "One day, Lady Karin, you're going to meet a man whose will can't be bent to suit your purposes. And I'm not talking about Lord Sousuke, either. I mean a real man. And when that happens..."

Karin raised her eyebrows. "Yes?" she inquired.

"You'll fall in love with him," Toshiro added shortly.

Karin could not help laughing very heartily at that.

"Oh, Captain!" she cried, flinging out a hand to keep him from saying more-for surely if he did, she'd die laughing. "You are so droll! As if I could ever love anyone but Aizen!"

But Toshiro wasn't laughing at all. He regarded her gravely with those sea-green eyes, looking almost-she did not think she was imagining this-as if he felt sorry for her.

Sorry! For her! Lady Karin Kurosaki, who had forty thousand pounds! Really, it was too excessively diverting.

"You don't love him," Toshiro said somberly. "You can't possibly."

It was then that, out of the corner of her eye, Karin caught a glimpse of something. She could not say what it was, exactly, that caused her to turn her head just when she did. All she knew was that, in spite of how very, very interesting she found what Toshiro Hitsugaya was saying, she could not seem to keep her gaze upon his face. Instead she glanced over her shoulder, back toward the doors to the room they were standing in...

And found herself looking at the handsomest man she had ever seen. A man in evening dress, with brown hair, a manly jaw, and a smile just for Karin.

"Oh, can't I, then?" she asked Toshiro with a radiant smile.

And then she turned to fly into her fiancé's waiting arms.

* * *

**A/N: I would like to thank my friend who helps out with the story :) I swear she's such an amazing writer and sadly she doesn't have a FF account even though she should because I've read some of her stories and they're just amazing! Oh and about the IchiRuki thing... hopefully I didn't confuse you guys with it and to be honest with you I was going to pair her up with Renji but then I was going to feel weird about it because I'm all about IchiRuki and well you know the rest xD I also want to apologize for the OCCness especially Ichigo and Rukia who aren't as badass as they should be Lol. Anyway, please review and tell me what you thought :) Until next time! ;D**


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

"Well?" Karin spun in a circle before Lord Sousuke. "How do I look?"

"Pretty as a picture," his lordship declared. "Prettier, even."

Karin stopped spinning, then ran her hands nervously over her muslin skirt to smooth it. Her fiancé's assertion was all well and good, but she felt she might need a less subjective opinion. "Rukia?" she asked, with a nervous glance in her cousin's direction.

But Rukia was hardly paying attention. She had one hand up, shading her eyes—though the sun was putting in a halfhearted appearance, being mostly hidden behind the clouds that seemed perpetually to cover the English sky— while she scanned the green lawn before them.

"I don't see him," she said, sounding dismayed. "Are you sure Mr. Kurosaki received an invitation, Lord Sousuke?"

"Of course I'm sure, Miss Kuchiki," Aizen said with a laugh. "I added his name to the guest list myself. Now tell your cousin how lovely she looks, so we can join the rest of the company."

Rukia threw Karin a glance that could only be called perfunctory. "Rin, stop fussing," she said. "You look fine."

But this casual remark was hardly enough to satisfy Karin, who had spent the whole of the morning in front of her bedroom mirror, castigating Mariah for not getting her hair coiled to perfection and her gown wrinkle-free. Nothing looked right—not her upswept hair, not the high-waisted white gown, not the blue silk sash just below her bosom, not the sapphire bobs in her ears, shimmering like stars, nor even the deceptively simple—but murderously expensive—blue-and-white straw bonnet she wore atop her head.

And Karin wanted everything to look right, because today was the day every girl dreamed of... while at the same time fearing it with every fiber of her being. For today was the day Karin was to meet for the first time the woman who would be her mother-in-law.

"Mother will love you!" Aizen had exclaimed, when Karin had expressed her reservations about this meeting to him. "Are you mad? How could anyone help but love you, Rin?"

But Karin did not share her husband-to-be's confidence in the matter. She knew that every home could have only one chatelaine, and she was determined that, in Aizen's home, that would be she. But supposing the dowager Lady Sousuke was unwilling to allow her to take charge?

Well, the dowager Lady Sousuke would simply have to be gotten rid of.

Oh, not by killing her, of course. Karin had a profound distaste for violence, and besides thought murder entirely too easy—unsporting, actually. It would be far more challenging simply to try to convince Aizen's mother of the benefits of living elsewhere... Bath, perhaps. Or Portofino. Portofino was said to be lovely...

Oh, it would be so much nicer if it didn't come to that! It would be so much nicer if Aizen's mother turned out to be rather a dim sort of woman, only too happy to allow Karin to take over the running of her household. Or, better still, if she happened to turn out to be a shrewd woman who recognized at once Karin's superior management skills, and stepped dutifully out of the way.

Either way, Karin was about to find out just what, in fact, her future held: for Aizen had placed her hand upon his arm, and was steering her toward the large party gathered beneath one of the largest oaks in Hyde Park, for a festive picnic in honor of his bride-to-be.

When Aizen had mentioned that his mother wished to hold a bridal picnic, Karin had wondered—to herself, of course—if the woman was not perhaps unsound in the head. But now that she approached the series of white sheets spread out upon the grass, and saw the uniformed footmen, in their powdered wigs and coattails, standing about with silver trays of champagne glasses and bowls of fat ripe strawberries dipped in sugar, she saw that the word picnic, in England, meant something far different than it did back in India. In India picnics were hardly popular affairs, thanks to the heat, the constant threat of attack by tigers or bandits, and the throngs of impoverished beggars that gathered around the picnic blankets with their palms stretched out and their mouths opened hungrily. Karin had never once attended a picnic where she did not end up giving away three quarters of her own food to the less fortunate, while her uncles had always insisted on embarking on such outings with an armed escort of no less than twenty men... an undertaking that made picnics in their area hardly a popular form of entertainment.

Picnics in England were obviously something else entirely, if the coolly elegant scene before Karin was any indication. There wasn't a tiger in sight, let alone any armed militiamen. If there were beggars, they certainly ventured nowhere near. And as for bandits, the closest to them Karin could detect was another group of well-dressed picnickers a few hundred feet away.

Jinta guided Karin toward a pleasantly plump older woman who had laugh lines radiating from the corners of her bright blue eyes, and a lot of very dark—surely dyed— curls peeping out from beneath her bonnet brim.

"Mother," Aizen said to the woman with a bow, "may I present at last my bride-to-be, Lady Karin Kurosaki." Karin, her heart beating wildly—for all she could think was, Supposing she doesn't like me? —curtsied prettily and said, "So honored to make your acquaintance, ma'am."

The dowager Lady Sousuke, however, was not one to stand on ceremony, since she instantly reached out and seized Karin by both shoulders and pulled her in for a long—and rather tight, to Karin's way of thinking—embrace.

"At last, at last!" cried the dowager Lady Sousuke. Her voice was quite childlike in its tenor and pitch. "I have heard so much about you, Lady Karin, I feel as if I know you already! But you are so much prettier than anyone said. Jinta, why did you not tell me she was so very, very lovely?"

Aizen stood looking down upon them with a twinkle in his brown eyes—eyes that, Karin saw now, he'd inherited from his mother.

"I believe I did," he said with a chuckle. "Did I not tell you she was fair as the evening star?"

To be compared to the evening star was, of course, a compliment beyond all compliments, and Karin, blushing with pleasure, thought she might actually die from joy... but first she rather hoped to extricate herself from her future mother-in-law's embrace, as that good woman still held on to her with a surprisingly strong grip.

"We shall be the best of friends," the dowager declared, her cheek very soft upon Karin's. "The best of friends, I can already tell. Welcome... welcome, my child, to the family."

While this greeting was very nice indeed, it instantly set Karin on her guard, for she knew very well that mothers— and daughters-in-law could never be friends. Allies, perhaps, against the men in the family, who would inevitably muddle things with their imprudent purchases and dirty boots. But never, ever friends. Karin had listened as each of her ayah's daughters wept after moving in to her husband's home, only to find that the mother-in-law who had insisted before their wedding that they were the best of friends had turned around and spoken badly of her to the servants and all of her other daughters-in-law at the earliest opportunity.

No, friends with the dowager Karin knew she would never be. But rampaging Zulu warriors would not have dragged the truth of this from her lips.

"How nice," she said instead, still wishing the dowager would release her. "I never had a mother, as I'm sure you know. At least, not one that I remember well."

"I shall be a mother to you," the dowager said, giving Karin yet another rib-crunching squeeze. "A mother and a friend!"

"That will be splendid," Karin said... and was able to draw breath at last when the older woman suddenly released her.

"Oh, no, not now," the dowager Lady Sousuke said in a sharp tone that was quite unlike the one she'd used with Karin. "The petit fours come after the lamb cutlets!"

Karin turned her head and saw that the good lady was addressing one of the footmen, who was carrying a silver platter loaded down with tiny chocolate-covered pastries... pastries that Karin already recognized, even after the mere two weeks she'd been in London, as being from one of the finest bakeries in town.

While she was, of course, honored that the dowager would go to so much expense on her account, Karin could not help suspecting that, after her marriage, she was going to be presented with the bill for this little party. For there were, by her count, nearly fifty guests, who would each consume half a bottle of champagne at least (for despite the lack of sun, it was a warmish day). Then there was the cost of hiring the footmen, not to mention the food—lamb cutlets, as Karin knew only too well from her now-daily consultations with the Kuchiki's cook, were not cheap—and the rental of the silverware...

Why, Karin would not be surprised if the whole picnic ran over a hundred pounds! A hundred pounds! And spent by a woman who supposedly didn't have a penny to her name!

Oh, no. Karin and her future mother-in-law were definitely not going to be friends. Not when Karin began what she knew was going to be the very arduous task of forcing Aizen to retrench. For even her forty thousand pounds would not last, if this was a typical example of how the Sousuke's entertained.

"Isn't it a lovely party?" her cousin asked her dreamily an hour or so later. Karin, who had had her fill of crab cakes and oysters—not to mention Lord Sousuke's friends, who were of the hearty, backslapping variety—had taken up her parasol and begun to stroll around the edges of the picnic area... allegedly to walk off the effects of the champagne, but actually so that she could keep an eye on the servants, whom she'd begun to suspect were palming the silver.

"Yes," Karin replied without having really heard the question. There was something amiss about the dowager Lady Sousuke's friends... many of them, like the dowager, had dyed hair. And their clothes seemed... well, a bit bright . They had all been very charming to Karin, but there was no escaping the fact that they seemed to her to be rather... common. None of the men seemed to have employment, and she'd fancied that several of the women were wearing face powder. And Karin was ready to swear that one of the younger ones had actually arrived with her skirts damp—on purpose, to make the material cling to her admittedly well-shaped legs.

Her aunt Miyuki, Karin knew, would have suffered apoplexy had she witnessed such a thing. Karin was very glad that her aunt and uncle had had a prior social commitment and could not attend the hastily arranged picnic.

"And you know," Rukia prattled on, swinging her reticule gaily beside her as she strolled, "Mr. Kurosaki says it's the loveliest picnic he's ever been to."

Karin did not doubt this was so. It was also most likely the costliest.

But seeing that Rukia was so happy lifted her spirits a bit. Karin even went so far as to congratulate herself that it was all due entirely to her own careful planning. Ichigo Kurosaki had proved to be an attentive and ardent suitor. More important, however, he had turned out to possess a fortune of five thousand a year, which, while not as impressive as Toshiro Hitsugaya's income, was nevertheless far more than a girl of Rukia's comparatively modest means could reasonably expect in a suitor. It had not been at all difficult to convince Mr. Kurosaki—who, at one and twenty, was quite ready to fall in love—of her cousin's merits.

And it had been even easier to get Rukia to forget all about her infatuation with a certain ship captain, and think only of Mr. Kurosaki instead. For as Karin knew very well indeed, there was nothing more appealing to a young girl than a handsome gentleman who happens to admire her. All it took was a few well-timed compliments and a nosegay in order for Mr. Kurosaki to replace Captain Hitsugaya in Miss Kuchiki's heart. Her hand, Karin was certain, would soon be his.

"The dowager," Rukia observed as they ambled along the edge of one of the picnic sheets, "seems a very jolly sort."

"Doesn't she?" Karin was thinking that the dowager had every reason to feel jolly... her financial concerns were soon to evaporate entirely.

"I only hope that Ichigo's mother will be as welcoming of me," Rukia said with a nervous giggle-for as she and Mr. Kurosaki were not yet engaged, it was rather daring of her to call him by his first name. "When the occasion arises, I mean."

"I'm certain she will," Karin said warmly. "For what mother would not welcome a daughter-in-law like you? You embroider so tidily, and I've never heard you raise your voice to the servants."

Rukia looked pleased. "I hope you're right! But Mr. Kurosaki and I are not even engaged yet, so it's wrong of me even to think of such things. You, however... oh, Rin, it's like a dream, isn't it? I mean, the way Lord Sousuke worships you."

Karin had to admit that it was. For all her irritation with the Sousuke's friends, and the way Aizen and his mother mismanaged their limited income—for the dowager was not alone in her profligate spending habits; her son, too, bore some of the blame—it was difficult to stay angry with either of them. Aizen was, of course, all that was romantic and tender, constantly reminding Karin of how precious she was to him, and stealing kisses whenever he was able. He'd even gone so far as to spend part of the money he'd taken to Lisbon to retrieve his familial portraits on an engagement ring, which Karin now wore instead of his signet on her wedding finger. Never mind that the emerald—which Aizen had insisted matched Karin's gray eyes, a mistake for which she readily forgave him—was larger than Karin thought strictly tasteful. It had been a lovely gesture. And as soon as they were married, Karin would have the stone recut to a more modest size. And she'd have a pair of ear bobs to match!

Aizen had even managed to soothe the Kuchiki's fears concerning his impending wedding to their headstrong niece. By becoming a familiar guest in the Kuchiki household and getting to know each of the little Kuchiki's by name, he had charmed Karin's aunt. And with his frequent gifts of cigars to Karin's uncle, he had managed to win that man's favor as well. Her aunt and uncle had given them their blessing, and now that Aizen's mother seemed pleased with the match as well, Karin supposed the only thing left to do was settle upon a date. She rather fancied getting married on a Tuesday. She had always been fond of Tuesdays.

Karin was planning her honeymoon in Venice—she had heard Venice was lovely—when, beside her, Rukia suddenly stiffened and sucked in her breath.

"I say," Rukia exclaimed as they reached the edge of the farthest picnic sheet. "Isn't that... Why, Rin, I think... Yes, it is; it is him! What is he doing here?"

Karin looked in the direction Rukia was pointing. There, coming toward them from the riding path, on a handsome bay with a nicely arched neck, was Captain Toshiro Hitsugaya... whose name, Karin knew for certain, was not on the dowager Lady Sousuke's guest list. Karin was the one, in fact, who'd insisted on its not being there.

"Stuff and bother," Karin muttered, lowering the brim of her parasol so it covered her face. It was probably a hopeless gesture, but there was always a chance the captain hadn't yet recognized her. Besides, the parasol hid the blush that unaccountably—and very annoyingly—showed up on Karin's cheeks every time she encountered Toshiro Hitsugaya of late.

Which was ridiculous, because of course she was in love—deeply and irrevocably in love—with the ninth Earl of Sousuke. Surely the only reason she happened to blush when Toshiro Hitsugaya looked her way had to do with the fact that the captain was so very forward. He did, after all, seem to think he knew what was best for her—and had no compunction about telling her so.

Though she tried standing quite still—the way a rabbit, caught in the path of a cobra, often did—Toshiro seemed to notice her just the same, since soon a pair of horse's hooves appeared in the grass before her, and Karin heard him say, in that infuriatingly teasing tone of his, "Good afternoon, Lady Karin, Miss Kuchiki."

Karin had no choice then but to raise her parasol and smile sunnily into his insufferably smug face.

"Captain," she said, her calm tone at odds with the high color in her cheeks.

Beside her, Rukia, whom she'd thought sufficiently recovered from her infatuation with the ship captain, was proving that this was not the case. She had turned as pink in the face as Karin, and seemed not to know where to place her gaze. Karin glanced frantically around for Mr. Kurosaki, but he was, the selfish thing, engaged in a game of mumblety-peg and not even looking in their direction.

"Not a very promising day for a picnic," Captain Hitsugaya said with a glance at the leaden sky above.

"At least it's warm," Karin replied. Inside, of course, her response was not nearly so sanguine. Weather? You stand there discussing the weather with him, with this obnoxious man who seems to think he knows what's best for you, and who has, probably for good, broken the heart of your most beloved cousin? What is wrong with you? Tell him to take his horse and go to—

"Is that the dowager Lady Sousuke I see?" Captain Hitsugaya asked, squinting in Karin's future mother-in law's direction.

"Indeed," Karin replied tonelessly.

"Well." The captain, from high atop his saddle, scanned the assorted guests seated upon the white sheets and the footmen who moved about them with their bowls of sugared strawberries and trays of champagne. She prayed that Toshiro Hitsugaya was not farsighted enough to see the damp-skirted young lady from his perch. "How nice."

Nice?Nice? That was all he had to say? If that was all he had to say, why didn't he ride on? Why did he just sit there, looking out over the picnic blankets like a maharaja surveying his troops...?

It was at this point that Rukia suddenly let out a startled cry. "My reticule!"

Karin turned her head and saw, of all things, a ragged little miscreant—male, apparently, though it was hard to tell beneath the dirt—dart by, clutching her cousin's bag.

Rukia's shriek had startled the captain's horse—as, Karin supposed, the thief knew it would; otherwise he would not have dared so bold a move, and in broad daylight... well, what passed for daylight in this damp place. Still, Toshiro Hitsugaya handled the steed admirably, crying, "Stop, thief!" while still managing to keep his place in the saddle.

But the captain's aid—though appreciated—was not strictly needed. Not when Karin had merely to stick out a foot and trip the recalcitrant young man, then rest her knee in the middle of his spine.

Nothing, of course, could have been simpler. But here came the earl and Mr. Kurosaki, along with the rest of the picnickers, as if there were something they could do, as well.

Really, Karin thought with disgust, but Londoners made such a fuss about things!

* * *

**A/N: so here you go, another chapter :) review and tell me what you thought ^.^ they always make my day**

**Until next time!~**


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

"Oh, Lady Karin!" the dowager Lady Sousuke cried. "Don't touch him! The dirty thing might... might bite you or something!"

Karin regarded her future mother-in-law calmly from where she knelt, with one knee pressed firmly in the small of the little thief's back. The boy was kicking a great deal, and wailing quite lamentably as well, but wasn't otherwise causing Karin the least bit of concern.

"Here you are, Rukia," she said, plucking her cousin's reticule from the boy's hand, and passing it back to the older girl. "I'm sure he's very sorry for what he did. Aren't you?" She leaned more heavily on the boy's spine. "Aren't you?"

"Aye," the lad cried. "Aye! Let me up! Please let me up, miss!"

Captain Hitsuagaya, who by this time had gotten his horse under control and dismounted, leaned down and laid rough hands upon the boy's shoulder.

"It's all right, my lady," he said to Karin. "I've got him now."

Karin, noticing how close Toshiro Hitsugaya's face was to hers, and how, though he wasn't anywhere near as handsome as the earl—not with those collar points!—very amiable he looked, nonetheless rose quickly, so as to be as far from him as possible.

"Well, let's get a look at you, then," the captain said, hauling the boy to his feet.

The thief was not, Karin soon saw, a very prepossessing creature. Although he was covered in dirt, from his scuffed boots to his mop of lank hair, there was a fist-sized clean spot in the center of his face—but this was only because the frightened boy was weeping.

"Please, sir," he begged between sobs. "Don't call the Runners on me, sir."

Runners, the dowager Lady Sousuke explained to a perplexed Karin, were the Bow Street Runners, who kept the peace in the streets of London.

"They'll hang me, sir." The boy sobbed. "They already hung me dad."

Karin raised her eyebrows when she heard this. She was not opposed to punishing criminals, but hanging thieves seemed to her to be a bit extreme. In India such a crime would have earned so young a boy a mere whipping. Really, but the justice system in England seemed a bit harsh, sending tax evaders halfway across the world to live amongst the kangaroos, and hanging poor little purse snatchers! Karin had had no idea things were so very strict here.

"Got him, then, Hitsugaya?" Lord Hanakri came striding up. "Little ruffian! Karin, are you quite all right?"

"Of course I am," she said. Imagine, making such a fuss over a simple footpad! "Rukia's the one whose purse was stolen, not me."

All eyes turned toward Rukia, who was crying almost as fitfully as the boy—although from fear, not because she'd been physically harmed. Karin was certain the thief hadn't so much as bumped her.

"Are you all right, Miss Kuchiki?" Ichigo Kurosaki asked with a look of genuine—and tender—concern.

"Oh!" was all Rukia seemed able to say. The next thing Karin knew her cousin had thrown herself, weeping stormily, into Mr. Kurosaki's strong arms. He looked surprised but delighted by this turn of events, and was soon guiding Rukia away from the scene, with one arm curled protectively around her slender shoulders. Seeing this, Karin shot a triumphant look in Captain Hitsugaya's direction, eager to see how he would take the abandonment of a girl Karin was certain he'd once numbered amongst his conquests.

To her disappointment, however, Toshiro wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to Rukia Kuchiki. All of his powers of concentration seemed focused on the footpad he was now holding by the collar of the boy's shirt.

"Someone must go for the Runners at once," Lord Sousuke was saying. "I'll hold the boy, Hitsuagaya. Take your horse and go for the magistrates."

But Toshiro Hitsugaya dismissed this with a curt, "You take my horse. I'll stay here and hold him."

"It's your horse," Aizen pointed out, not very nicely.

Toshiro Hitsugaya grinned in a manner Karin could only call wicked. "Afraid you won't be able to manage him, Sousuke?"

The earl looked affronted. "Certainly not! Only that... well, it's my fiancé who's been insulted. I'm the one who ought to stay and comfort her."

Everyone turned to look at Karin, who, to her own certain knowledge, was far from needing any comfort. She was quick to admit as much, saying, "I haven't been insulted. And I certainly don't need comforting. I'm perfectly all right."

Seeing Lord Sousuke's slightly disappointed look—not to mention the way his mother shook her head until her black (surely a woman of that age should havesome gray in her hair) curls swayed—Karin bit her lip. Clearly she ought to have feigned light-headedness or something. Catching footpads with her bare hands, like descending ladders from boats, was obviously not something proper English ladies were supposed to was she going to learn? She would never make a very good earl's wife at this rate.

"Please, sirs," the boy the captain held so tightly wailed. "I swear I'll never do it again, if you'll only let me go!"

He sounded, to Karin's ears, perfectly truthful. The boy looked terrified out of his mind.

The dowager Lady Sousuke apparently did not think so, however, since she said, "Stop standing about arguing with the man, Aizen, and go and fetch a Runner so we might all get back to our picnic!"

Aizen, glaring darkly, turned to seize the reins of Captain Hitsuaya's mount. It was at that point that Karin decided she had had quite enough of the entire situation. Whether or not it was proper for young English ladies to go about catching footpads, she didn't know. But one thing she did know: it wasn't proper to hang little boys.

And so, accordingly, she thrust a finger at a point in the air just above the captain's right shoulder and let out a bloodcurdling shriek.

As Karin had hoped, Toshiro was so startled he loosened his hold on the boy momentarily. "What?" he cried, turning his head toward the direction in which she pointed. "What is it?" The footpad, who was clearly no one's fool, took off at a pace so incredibly fast, it was doubtful even Captain Hitsugaya's horse would have been able to overtake him— providing the captain had mounted him in time. Which he did not, in fact, do. Instead Toshiro Hitsugaya, realizing at once what Karin had done—and why—turned to look at her with an expression that could only have been called cynical.

"What?" Lord Sousuke was still searching for whatever had caused Karin to scream so loudly. "What is it, my love? Gypsies? Never say Gypsies have dared showed their faces in Hyde Park!" Then, noticing that the footpad had escaped, he cried, "Hitsugaya, you great ass! You let him get away!"

Toshiro Hitsugaya turned his cynical expression toward the earl. "So did you," he observed.

"Are you mad?" Lord Sousuke wanted to know. "He'll only steal some other poor young lady's bag."

"Tell that," Toshiro said dryly, "to your fiancé."

Lord Sousuke swung toward Karin with a stunned expression on his handsome face. "Rin," he cried. "Did you... did you scream apurpose? So the boy could get away?"

Karin looked heavenward. "Oh, dear," she said, her gaze on the clouds. "Do you think it's going to rain? It doesn't look very promising, does it, my lord?"

"Karin!" Lord Sousuke was shocked. "You can't allow scamps like that to run free! Why, he might murder the next person he robs!"

"He looked eager to reform his ways to me, my lord," Karin said mildly.

"What can you even know of it?" Lord Sousuke wanted to know. "You're far too innocent to be acquainted with people of his sort-for which all I can say is, thank God. But I assure you, my lady, rogues like that can never be reformed!"

Karin could not help darting a glance in Toshiro Hitsuagaya's direction upon hearing the word rogue from her fiancé's lips. She looked just in time to see the captain smother a laugh. Insufferable young man! By rights he really ought to have been horsewhipped by someone.

"I think you're wrong, my lord," Karin said evenly, speaking to Aizen though her gaze was on Captain Hitsugaya. "I believe no rogue is beyond reforming."

Captain Hitsuagaya, to Karin's surprise, abruptly stopped laughing. His expression was very serious indeed as he swung back into his mount's saddle.

Karin could not resist inquiring acidly, "Going so soon, Captain?"

"I'm late to an appointment as it is," Toshiro replied from his seat so high above her, with a smile completely devoid of warmth. "And I wouldn't want to keep you any longer from your little party."

"Kind of you, Hitsuagaya," Lord Sousuke said, taking Karin's hand and pressing it against the crook of his arm...

...an action Toshiro Hitsuagaya observed with a distinct tightening of his lips before curtly saying, "If I see a Runner, I'll give him the boy's description. We aren't complete barbarians here in England, Lady Karin, whatever you might think. The child would not have been hanged. He only said that to play upon your heartstrings. It worked quite handily, I see. Well." He lifted his hat briefly. "Good day." Then he rode off.

He was, Karin could not help noticing, an excellent horseman, who kept a very nice seat on his fractious steed. She oughtn't to have been surprised, she supposed, that Toshiro Hitsugaya was as graceful on a horse as he was upon a ship. The wretched man seemed at ease wherever he happened to turn up.

Something that Lord Sousuke evidently noticed as well, if his next words were any indication.

"I say," Lord Sousuke declared. "That fellow does tend to appear at your side with alarming regularity, Karin. I believe he might be a little in love with you."

Karin, flicking a wary glance in Rukia's direction—she was not fully convinced her cousin was completely over the dashing young captain—said, in a tone she hoped sounded quite unconcerned, "La, my lord, you could not be more mistaken! Toshiro Hitsugaya has made it very clear indeed that I am his least favorite person in England."

"Well, he's a liar, then," the dowager Lady Sousuke declared from where she'd stood, along with everyone else, watching the excitement... for it wasn't every day a mother got to watch her son catch a footpad, even if, sadly, the heinous criminal had gotten away. "Because no one who met Lady Karin could help but count her as one of their favorite people."

Karin smiled, though her future mother-in-law's words made her feel distinctly uncomfortable. The dowager had not known her long enough, really, to make a judgment of this kind. She was, Karin supposed, only being kind.

As, she was certain, her cousin was being as well, when she insisted to Karin that she was not-no, not in the least!—upset over Lord Sousuke remark about Toshiro Hitsugaya being in love with Karin.

"Lord Sousuke is in love with you himself, Rin," Rukia reminded her very nicely, as the two girls walked together back toward the picnic blankets. "Naturally he thinks everyone else should be, as well. Besides, I told you, I don't care a whit for Toshiro Hitsugaya anymore. Mr. Kurosaki is ten times the man the captain is."

Karin heard this with great approval. She agreed wholeheartedly, of course, and said so. Ichigo Kurosaki, she pointed out, was handsomer, kinder, and far, far more intelligent than Toshiro Hitsugaya, because Ichigo Kurosaki had had the good taste to fall in love with Rukia—not even to mention the fact that he wore his collar points at an appropriate height.

"I do think, however," Rukia said, with a glance over her shoulder at their two suitors, who followed some few yards behind them, "that it wasn't entirely... well, ladylike of you to stop that boy the way you did. You really ought to have left it to the men."

Karin heard this with raised eyebrows and a startled exclamation. "But, Rukia, if I'd done that, he'd have gotten away with your bag!"

"So I'd have lost a hair comb and fifty pence," Rukia said with a shrug. "It would not have been as bad as losing my dignity, which I fear you did a bit, Rin, when you... well, did what you did. Why, even now, some of your hair's hanging down."

Karin reached up to tuck the wayward strand back beneath her bonnet. She felt a prickle of irritation with her cousin, whom she could only decide was the most ungrateful creature on earth. After all she'd done for her, too, first convincing her of Toshiro Hitsugaya's lack of worth as a potential husband, then arranging for the very handsome and desirable Mr. Kurosaki to fall in love with her, and then rescuing her reticule! Why, this was not even including the incredible improvements Karin had made on her cousin's home, what with the banishment of the tureen of beef, the turning of Mariah into an undeniably professional lady's maid, and forcing her younger cousins to act like quiet, well-behaved boys and girls.

And this was the thanks she got for all her very hard work! `Not entirely ladylike!'

It seemed to Karin as if her many talents might never be suitably recognized—or appreciated—by anyone. For in order to complete the transformation she was planning on Lord Sousuke—turning him from titled but penniless peer into a man of wealth as well as privilege— she would have to progress with careful subtlety, so that he might never know she was managing him all along. For men hated nothing more than a woman who meddled in their business. Weren't her uncles a prime example? Why, they had sent her all the way to England when it finally dawned upon them that that was precisely what she'd been doing since the age of five.

Well, it was, she supposed, the cross that people such as herself must bear. It was entirely possible that her most selfless actions might never be acknowledged by those for whom they were exerted. Sad, but true.

Still, Karin would not allow self-pity to creep into her thoughts. She had a good deal to be thankful for, after all, and those things included, of course, her forty thousand pounds, her sound teeth and constitution, her exceptionally fine ankles, and most important, her talent for tidying up things that had become, well, messy. For who didn't long for an existence free from unpleasant drama and catastrophes? That was why people like Karin had been put upon the earth: to work at preventing such things.

And as soon as she was married, Karin knew the very first catastrophe she'd correct: her mother-in-law's hair. If the dowager could not be persuaded to allow it to gray naturally, Karin could, at least, convince her to wear a wig in a more natural shade than the ebony black of her current tresses.

Really, but it did seem at times as if Karin's work might never be done. She still had all of the footmen's coat sleeves to search, as well. Because over her dead body was a single one of them going to escape with a scrap of the silver her future mother-in-law had hired for the occasion.

At Karin's expense, of course.

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**A/N: Here's the seventh chapter of the story :) and I would like to thank my reviewers, you guys always manage to put a smile on my face and happy New Years! Even though I'm four days too late lol. Umm, I don't know when I'll post the next chapter... but hopefully I could post sometime by next week, so make sure to keep in eye on that. I have nothing else to day so please review, follow, or favorite.**

**Until Next Time!~**


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

"But are you certain you want to go, Rukia?" Karin inquired of her cousin, with what she hoped would be taken for very ladylike concern. "Because we needn't stay if you don't feel entirely up to it."

Rukia, descending from the coach-and-four with care, for she was attired in another of Karin's borrowed gowns, this one in the palest of pinks, looked cross.

"I told you before, Rin," she said irritably, "it is nothing to me. He is nothing to me."

Karin was very relieved to hear this. Still, she was not entirely convinced.

"Because we can still give our excuses, you know," she said in a low voice as the two girls trailed behind Mr. and Mrs. Kuchiki, as they ascended the stone steps to the front door of Toshiro Hitsugaya's Mayfair town house. "We can say I'm not feeling well, and turn right around for home."

Rukia cast her cousin a disparaging look over one slim shoulder. She had been, ever since learning of her mother's acceptance of Captain Hitsugaya's invitation to dine, coolly indifferent about the situation. But that, Karin was quite certain, was all an act.

Or so Karin had thought, until her cousin's next words hit her like a slap in the face.

"If you ask me, Rin," Rukia said in a very sour voice, "you're the one who seems to have a problem dining at Captain Hitsugaya's table this evening. For I certainly don't care. My affections belong entirely to another now."

Karin, exceedingly taken aback, declared, "I beg your pardon, Rukia, but I do not have a problem with dining at Captain Hitsugaya's table this evening. Far from it. It's you I cannot help feeling concerned for. You did, after all, once confess yourself in love with him."

"I'm not half as in love with him as you are, Rin," said Rukia very snidely indeed.

And when Karin —as she had every right to—let out a snort of indignation at this, her cousin had the nerve to add, "Well, anyone who hates a man half so much as you profess to hate Captain Hitsugaya can only be in love with him. In fact, I think Lord Sousuke and I got it all wrong: It isn't the captain who's in love with you. It's you who's in love with the captain."

It was on the tip of Karin's tongue to tell her cousin precisely what she thought of this very absurd statement—not to mention what she thought of Rukia herself—when the front door to Captain Hitsugaya's town house was thrown open, and they were all ushered inside by an extremely competent butler.

"Girls," Karin's aunt said through gritted teeth as her wrap was being taken, "kindly do not squabble so. Mr. Kuchiki and I would like to have a pleasant meal with Captain Hitsugaya and his mother."

"I am not the one who is squabbling," Karin asserted, flattening a hand to her chest. "I am only defending myself against your daughter, who seems to be casting aspersions against my character."

Rukia said in a hiss, "I am doing nothing of the kind!"

"What do you call accusing a person of being engaged to one man but in love with another?" Rukia replied in a hiss of her own.

"I call her by her name, Lady Karin Kurosaki," Rukia snapped.

And in truth it was a good thing that Captain Hitsugaya butler announced them just then, or Cousin Rukia might have found her ears boxed; Karin was that incensed.

Well, and what else could she have expected, really? Karin's ayah had warned her that few, if any, people seemed to know what was best for them, and that Karin should not expect anyone to be grateful for the very kind help she was continuously offering them. The red ants Karin saved from drowning by coaxing them onto a stick and rescuing them from the Kuchiki's watering can would turn around and sting her at their first opportunity. And the mongrel she saved from the village children's stones would bite her, even as she attempted to feed it.

But for Rukia to have accused her of being in love with Toshiro Hitsugaya—Toshiro Hitsuagaya! Why, that was the cruelest blow Karin had ever received. What could Karin ever have done to put such a ridiculous idea in her cousin's head? She had had nothing but contempt and ill words for Toshiro since the very unfortunate day they'd met. What could her cousin possibly be thinking?

The butler showed them into a well-appointed room, high ceilinged and very airy. Toshiro Hitsugaya's home, Karin saw at once, was pleasant and tastefully decorated. This was due entirely, Karin was certain, to the handsome and dignified woman introduced to her as Mrs. Hitsugaya, Toshiro's mother, who clasped her hand warmly and said, "Lady Karin, what a pleasure to meet you."

Mrs. Hitsugaya, Karin noted with approval, had allowed her hair to turn gray, and the silver tinge added considerably to the lady's charm. It was, in fact, incredible to Karin that so unaffected and natural a woman could have given birth to an unpleasant young man like Toshiro Hitsugaya.

That individual stood by the fire—lit, of course, for though it was summer it rained, as it had virtually without stopping since Karin's arrival—looking very content with himself indeed. Well, and why shouldn't he? Clearly his intention in inviting Karin to dine in his home was to show her how very wrong she'd been in her low estimation of him. Wasn't that a Gainsborough hanging above his mantel? And weren't those Dresden shepherdesses on his sideboard? As if, simply because he owned these fine things, his opinion on Lord Sousuke's character ought to be trusted! How rich. Karin wanted to laugh, but she was still too upset over her cousin's cruel remarks to do more than answer yes and no to Mrs. Hitsugaya's gentle questions about how Karin was liking her stay in London thus far.

What, Karin could only sit and wonder, as the others sipped champagne and chatted amiably about the very topics Karin most adored, India and the military, could Rukia have meant when she'd accused her of being in love with Captain Hitsugaya? Wasn't it perfectly obvious whom she was in love with? Wasn't she, in fact, wearing his ring?

Rukia was merely jealous. Yes, that had to be it. Rukia was still in love with Captain Hitsugaya, and she was jealous because Karin was marrying the man of her dreams, while the man of Rukia's dreams did not seem even to know she was alive. Really, if she thought about it, it was a very pitiable situation indeed. Poor Rukia, still so deeply in love with the captain that she lashed out at the very person who'd tried so valiantly to cure her of that unfortunate malady! And poor Mr. Kurosaki, who was so genuinely smitten with the eldest Miss Kuchiki!

But most of all, of course, poor Karin, who was the one forced to bear the brunt of her cousin's unhappiness in the form of some very unfair barbs at her own expense!

Well, Karin supposed there were martyrs who'd fared far worse and survived. Really, being accused of being in love with a man she could not abide was far better than being shot with poisoned darts or bitten by wasps.

Or so Karin supposed.

By the time the gong sounded for dinner, Karin had roused herself with thoughts like these, and was actually able to join in on the conversation—which was, she had to admit, a far livelier one than any she'd enjoyed so far with her fiancé and his mother, who had a rather dull tendency to talk of nothing but people with whom Karin was not acquainted. And the food, Karin noted with approval, was superbly prepared and elegantly served, proving that Toshiro Hitsugaya's mother was not only a charming hostess but competent with the staff as well, a pair of skills that rarely went hand in hand.

Really, Karin thought with some amusement as she swallowed a mouthful of savory fruit is just as well I am not in love with Toshiro—nor he with me—because it wouldn't do to marry him at all. His house is already perfect, run to perfection by his mother. And he already has money. Why, he doesn't need me a bit. I wouldn't have a thing to occupy my time all day long. I feel sorry for whomever he doesend up marrying. She'll have a very dull time of it.

Karin became even more convinced of this when it came time for the men to disappear for cigars and brandy while the women repaired to the drawing room for coffee. Mrs. Hitsugaya even gossiped divinely! She did not, of course, say anything that could at all be construed as malicious—she was much too ladylike for that—but she did mention a certain young lady whom her son had happened to see at a picnic at a park who—and here Karin feared very much she would hear about her own little escapade with a certain footpad, and glanced nervously at Rukia lest she give away the identity of this young lady with her surprised reaction...

But it turned out she needn't have feared, since the young lady Mrs. Hitsugaya was speaking of was the one who'd dampened her skirts to make them cling more provocatively to her legs. Karin blushed nonetheless, knowing now that Toshiro had noticed the scandalously clad girl at Lord Sousuke's picnic, and had relayed her description—though not, apparently, the fact that Karin and her cousin had been at the event as well.

"It really does make me so very relieved," Mrs. Hitsugaya went on as she passed Karin a plate of sugared wafers, "that my own daughter is married and grown, with a baby of her own. For I do not think I could raise a girl in this day and age—though you, Hisana, seem to manage quite well. Still, I don't envy you. So many young women today seem so wild! Imagine, soaking your skirts with water on purpose! Why, you could catch your death."

Karin, nibbling on one of the wafers, regarded Mrs. Hitsugaya's with interest. So Toshiro had an elder sister! A sister old enough to be married with a child. How intriguing. Karin could not picture the very self-assured captain with a sister, particularly an elder one. She wondered if Toshiro's sister had ever tortured him when he was younger the way she and Rukia, when they were very bored, enjoyed torturing her younger brothers, by sprinkling them with rosewater through the stairwell and dressing their hair in bows while they slept.

Karin did not have time to wonder about this for long, since soon the men joined them again, and the conversation shifted back to less scandalous topics. The fact that there was to be a full moon that night, and that an eyeglass Captain Hitsuaya had ordered all the way from Italy was newly arrived, led everyone-with the exception of Mr. Kuchiki, who had fallen asleep in a chair by the fire-out to the terrace leading off the drawing room, where they took turns peering through the lens-though with all the clouds, only the barest glimpse of the moon could be seen. The damp soon drove the other ladies back inside, but Karin was determined to stay outside until she saw, as Rukia had, the Dead Sea, and she refused to budge until the swiftly moving clouds overhead parted enough to award her a view.

To her irritation, Toshiro Hitsugaya stayed outside as well... no doubt, she told herself bitterly, to make sure she did not drop or otherwise harm his precious new plaything.

"You needn't fear for footpads outhere ," she informed him very sarcastically. "I promise I shan't let anyone steal it."

"No," Captain Hitsugaya said with the tiniest of smiles, visible in the candlelight that spilled through the terrace doors. "I don't imagine that you would. I rather fear for any footpads that come your way."

Karin snorted. "That certainly wasn't what you were saying the other day."

"I was in a foul mood the other day," Toshiro admitted. "I meant to ask your pardon for that."

Karin, exceedingly surprised that Toshiro Hitsugaya would ask her pardon for anything, only raised her eyebrows, keeping her gaze on the bright patch in the clouds, behind which she knew loomed the moon.

"Aren't you going to ask me," Toshiro asked, after some seconds of silence passed between them, "why I was in such a foul mood?"

"No," Karin replied sweetly.

"Well, I intend to tell you anyway," Toshiro said.

And then he did something so extraordinary that Karin very nearly had to pinch herself to make certain she wasn't dreaming. He reached for the terrace doors, which had been left partly open, and pulled them shut. Then, from his waistcoat pocket, he extracted a key, and locked them...

...with the two of them outside!

Karin—her eyes, she was quite sure, as large as peacock eggs—inquired pointedly, "Are you mad?"

"Probably," Toshiro Hitsugaya replied, dropping the key back into his pocket—which, Karin supposed, was proof that he hadn't completely lost his mind... if he had, undoubtedly he'd have tossed the key over the side of the balcony. Then, reaching for one of the wrought iron chairs, he spun it toward Karin, gave the damp seat a wipe with his handkerchief, and said, "Sit."

Karin, very much affronted—but positively intrigued—by his behavior, replied with spirit, "I most certainly shall not ."

"Fine," Toshiro replied, putting the chair back where he'd gotten it. "Now you are going to listen to me."

Karin realized that she did not have much of a choice. Unless she hurled herself over the side of the terrace—a drop of some twenty feet to the garden below— she could not help but listen to him. She supposed she could have banged on the terrace doors and alerted those inside of her plight. Her uncle Byakuya might be strong enough to break down the doors and rescue her... if he could be roused from his nap.

She was, however, mightily interested in what it was that Toshiro Hitsugaya had gone to such drastic lengths to tell her. Were Aizen and Rukia, she wondered, correct in their assertions that Captain Hitsugaya was in love with her? Was such a thing even possible? How could Toshiro Hitsugaya possibly be in love with her, when for the entire time she'd known him he'd done nothing but vex and tease her? What sort of man showed his love for a woman in such a manner?

But then, recalling what Rukia had said to her just that evening, it occurred to her that perhaps it was because of Hitsugaya's great passion for her that he'd taken to calling her Miss Bee and putting down her attempts to make things tidy. Perhaps what Rukia had accused Karin of—of hating Toshiro Hitsugaya so passionately, she could only be in love with him—was actually true of the captain?

Good Lord! Could it be? It certainly seemed so! Was Toshiro Hitsugaya going to confess his undying devotion to her, right here on his terrace, under the moonlight—well, what little there was of it—with his mother and her uncle and aunt just inside? Was he going to sweep her into his strong arms and rain impassioned kisses down upon her upturned face?

Karin, much to her chagrin, found that the thought of Toshiro Hitsugaya doing any of these things—confessing his love for her, sweeping her into his arms, and raining kisses down upon her face—was rather thrilling. In fact, just the thought that he might do any one of these things sent her heart beating a good deal more quickly than she knew it ought, considering the fact that she was engaged to someone else. What kind of girl was she, anyway, that she could find the idea of Toshiro Hitsugaya kissing her so appealing? She was practically married! And to someone else!

And yet there was no denying that when the captain looked at her with those emerald blue eyes and said her name, her pulse fluttered. And when he'd commanded her to sit, she'd felt quite a little jolt up and down her spine. There was nothing like a handsome man bossing one about... even if one hadn't the slightest intention of doing what he said.

La! she thought now. He's going to admit, finally, that the reason he has this absurd prejudice against Lord Sousuke—and has been so nasty to me all these weeks—is because he is madly and passionately in love with me, and can't stand the thought of me in another man's arms! How very, very jolly! I shall be gentle with him, of course. I wouldn't want him to fling himself over the side of the balcony from a broken heart, or anything like that. He could crack his skull open on those garden boxes down there, and that would be so untidy. I shan't utter a peep about the collar points, either.

"Karin," Toshiro said, and Karin could not help thinking again that it was very presumptuous of him to call her by her given name when she had not given him permission to do so. But she supposed he was too maddened by love for her to be completely sensible of what he was doing.

"I've tried everything I can think of to convince you how foolhardy this scheme of yours is—of marrying Aizen, I mean. But your aunt and uncle cannot—or will not—attempt to control you, and you will not seem to hear reason. And so you leave me with no choice but to reveal something to you—something that I swore to myself I would never tell another living soul— that I am afraid will only cause you pain... and myself grievous injury as well."

Karin thought this a very noble and dignified speech. She knew, of course, what was to follow. He would reveal his unrequited passion for her, and she, of course, would act surprised, as if the idea of his being in love with her had never, ever occurred to her. Then she would politely tell him she did not return his affections, and hoped he would not do anything rash.

"But the truth is, Karin..." Here Toshiro bent his sliver head, and seemed unable to go on.

Karin, rather vexed that he wasn't coming right out with it—surely her aunt would notice, sooner rather than later, how long she'd been alone with him out on the terrace, and wonder what they were doing, and try the door—decided to hurry things up a little. She laid a gentle hand upon his arm and said in the most comforting voice she could summon, "Captain Hitsugaya, you needn't say another word. You see, I already know."

Toshiro looked up, and at that very moment the clouds slid from the moon, sending an arc of bluish light onto the balcony, and bringing into high relief the pain and sad resignation etched upon his face.

"You do?" he asked in an astonished voice. "But how did you... how could you have found out?"

"It doesn't matter," Karin said gravely. "All that matters is... well, what we're going to do about it."

"Do about it?" Toshiro reached up to run a hand through his thick hair, causing Karin's fingers to slip from his arm. But he seemed hardly to notice this. "What in God's name are you talking about? Isn't it obvious what you're going to have to do about it?"

Karin saw that he was standing very close to the balcony railing. She would, she knew, have to handle this carefully indeed. While the idea of Toshiro Hitsugaya doing himself an injury due to his great love for her was, of course, delightful, it had to be admitted that, much as he annoyed her, she would miss him if he expired. No one else ever looked at her with eyes that seemed to see right into her heart—even if Captain Hitsugaya had never given any indication that he liked what he saw there.

Besides, Karin was certain Toshiro's death would hurt his mother a good deal, and Mrs. Hitsugaya was a very nice woman whom Karin would not have liked to see unhappy.

"Really, Toshiro," she said, unconsciously using his given name for the first time in their acquaintance. "I think you're making far too much of this. I'm sure it's only... only a passing fancy."

"A passing fancy?" Toshiro stared at her as if she'd just grown a second head. "That Aizen Sousuke is marrying you for your money? I rather think not."

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**A/N: Well then, how did I do after not updating after a month? Haha, I know most of you are anxious to see a true HitsuKarin moment but that will happen soon... maybe the next chapter or maybe the chapter after that but I'm not sure when lol. Anyway, I would like to thank my reviewers for their amazing reviews! You guys seriously put a smile on my face and thank you for that :D so review, favorite, follow, this story and tell me what you thought! And I hope I could meet up to your expectations!**

**Until Next Time!~**


	9. Chapter 9

**Okay, since I think that the majority of you didn't catch my previous note about the changing of names I would like to just say that I changed Jinta's name to Aizen. No, it does not mean you'll have to read the story all over again because the plot is staying the same. And the reason why I decided to change the names was because of last chapter... At the mention of Toshiro's sister, and as I read through it again my immediate thought went to Aizen so here it is chapter nine. Enjoy!**

**Sorry if this causes any confusion.**

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CHAPTER NINE

Karin, a good deal taken aback by this statement, blinked several times before managing to stammer, "Wh—what?"

Toshiro stared down at her, his eyes in pools of shadow, as the moon had slipped behind the clouds once again.

"That is what you meant?" he asked. "When you said you already knew. Isn't it?"

"I..." Karin was glad that the moon was gone. This way, though she could not read his expression, he, at least, could not see her blush.

Because Karin was blushing, and deeply. Oh, what a fool she'd been, to think he was in love with her! Of course he meant only to harp on at her about the same old subject. Toshiro Hitsuaya, in love with her? Perish the thought!

But it had to be admitted that Karin felt more than a little disappointed that it was not so... which of course made no sense whatsoever, since she was in love with Aizen. What did she care how Toshiro felt about her?

"Of course that's what I thought you meant," Karin said with a haughty toss of her head. "What else could you have meant?"

It was Toshiro's turn to blink.

"I don't know," he said. "But you certainly seem cool enough about it."

"Well, it isn't exactly anything very new," Karin said, pleased that he'd noted none of her discomfort. "You've been saying much the same thing—or something similar, anyway—since the moment I said yes to the earl's proposal."

"Yes, well"—he looked as serious as Karin had ever seen him look—"now I intend to tell you the truth about your precious earl—the truth that I and only a few other people know. And I would ask that, because of the nature of what I'm about to reveal, you swear that you will never mention it to anyone, ever."

"It isn't ladylike to swear," Karin reminded him primly.

"It isn't ladylike to tackle street urchins, either," Toshiro pointed out. "But that didn't seem to stop you the other day."

Karin lifted her gaze toward the heavens. "Very well," she said with a sigh. "I swear." And then, perhaps because she was a little disappointed that the captain wasn't, in fact, going to profess his undying devotion to her, she added with a good deal of asperity, "And now I suppose you're going to tell me a tawdry tale about some girl Lord Sosuke proposed to, then cast aside when he learned she hadn't as much money as he'd hoped."

"Pathetic is the word I'd use, not tawdry," Toshiro said brusquely. "And it wasn't some girl . It was my sister."

Karin brought her gaze very quickly to his face.

"Your... your sister?" she echoed. "But..."

And again she was grateful for the rain clouds, since they hid her suddenly flaming cheeks from sight. His sister? The one Mrs. Hitsugaya had spoken of, the one who was married and had a baby? Toshiro Hitsugaya's sister and...Aizen?

He must have read the astonishment on her face, despite the absence of moonlight, since he said in a heavy voice, "Yes, my sister, Momo. She married a Scot and lives in Edinburgh, or you'd have met her already. She's a great beauty, and was quite sought after when she came out a few years ago."

"I..." Karin was so astonished she hardly knew what to say. All she could think was, 'Stuff and bother! Now there'd be nothing but endless trouble and tears for everyone involved.'

But Toshiro had paused, and she supposed he expected a response of some kind. So she murmured, "I didn't know."

"No," Toshiro said, looking impatient. Evidently this was not the response he'd been anticipating. "How would you? You weren't even in England yet. In any case, Momo could have had her pick of suitors, but the one she liked best was the man to whom you are now engaged— Aizen Sousuke. He wasn't Lord Souske then... his father was still alive, as was my own. The two of them were friends— Sousuke's father and mine. Momo and Sousuke were often thrown together as a result, and I suppose an engagement was inevitable. Three weeks before the wedding, however, disaster struck. Several of my father's ships were lost at sea due to a series of storms. His fortune seemed lost. The strain was too much for him and he fell ill, and never did completely recover. He died just six months later."

Karin, who barely remembered her own father, said, "I'm so sorry," because it seemed the thing to say. But again Toshiro brushed her response aside.

"It was while all this was happening—my father's illness, and the loss of his ships—that Aizen Sousuke told my sister he couldn't see his way toward marrying her after all. They would have nothing to live on, you see, since Aizen's father hadn't a penny to his name, either. Momo suggested to Aizen that he might find work... an occupation. But Sousuke, you see"—here the captain's voice took a derisive dip—"are above actually earning a living. They'd rather live, like parasites, off the earnings of others. And so Aizen left London, and my sister, never to be heard of again—until, that is, he showed up on the Harmony —which I found the height of cheek, that he should have returned to London on one of my ships. For upon my father's death, I took over the business, you see, and built it up again."

Karin, who'd already heard this part of Toshiro's story from Rukia, could not help but admire Captain Hitsugaya's narrative restraint. For he had not, as he'd so simply described, built his father's business up again, but rather started a new business, practically from scratch, which had gone on to flourish in a dramatically short period of time... the same amount of time that Lord Sousuke, if Toshiro's story was to be believed, had been hiding in shame thousands of miles away.

It was, if it was true, a very serious charge indeed that Toshiro Hitsugaya laid at the feet of Karin's fiancé. For a broken engagement—and broken for such a reason!—was not soon to be forgiven. It was no small wonder that Aizen had not shown his face in England for so many years afterward.

But even though Karin felt very sorry indeed for the former Miss Hitsugaya, who had doubtless had her heart broken and been slighted beyond imagining, she could not be insensible to the fact that the situation had not been an easy one for her fiancé, either. Was he to be blamed if, upon finding himself incapable of attaining it any other way, he attempted to marry for money?

Still, if what Toshiro was saying was true—and Karin saw no reason why he might lie about it, when such a thing could so easily be checked—Lord Sousuke had behaved very badly indeed. For while Karin had learned most of what she knew of romance from her ayah, from her uncles she had learned something even more important: sportsmanship. And a good sport accepted his losses gracefully, and took his lumps like a man. Running off to India and abandoning his bride might have been the most sensible thing for Lord Sousuke to have done—otherwise, without money or love (for it was clear from his behavior that the earl could not have loved Toshiro's sister), what were the chances of the match succeeding? Still, it was hardly good sportsmanship. A game player took risks, and if those risks did not prove fruitful, then he took his lumps.

But Lord Sousuke had not taken his lumps. He had taken himself off instead. And that, to Karin, was far more offensive than his attempt to marry for money.

But of course she couldn't admit as much out loud. She had, she could see now, made a terrible mistake in agreeing to marry Lord Sousuke. But it would be bad sportsmanship to admit as much to anyone else before she'd given the earl a chance to defend himself against the charges.

And she would never admit as much to the likes of Toshiro Hitsugaya! And so, masking her own feelings of wounded pride and, it must be admitted, some mortification—for what girl likes to hear that a man she thought was in love with her was marrying her only for money? Even a girl who'd suspected something of the kind all along, but had thought herself perfectly all right with the idea?— Karin said gravely to Captain Hitsugaya, "I thank you for telling me. I am glad to hear that your sister's pain was not of long duration, and that she is happy now." Then, straightening herself up, Karin gestured toward the terrace doors. "Now would you kindly unlock these? For I'd like to go inside again, if I may."

Captain Hitsugaya, who had, during his impassioned speech about his sister, come to stand very close to Karin, now looked down at her with an expression every bit as astonished as if Karin had suggested he walk barefoot across a bed of hot coals.

"Lady Karin," he said in a voice that sounded a bit strangled. "I would never presume to tell you what to do—"

Karin could not restrain an incredulous laugh at that. The captain ignored her.

"—however," he went on, "I would urge you to consider very carefully whether or not you ought to marry the earl. He isn't... well, he isn't a very good man. And though I know we have had our differences in the past, my lady"—and here the captain's gaze bored very hard into her own—"I do think that, for the most part, your extremely impertinent interference in the affairs of others stems from a genuine desire to do good."

Karin parted her lips to protest that interference was hardly the correct term for her very kind efforts to improve the lots of her friends and relatives...

...but forgot everything she'd been about to say when she found one of her hands caught up in Captain Hitsugaya's. Looking down at her slim fingers in his own much larger ones, Karin felt, for some reason, her breath catch in her throat.

Which was, of course, perfectly ridiculous, because she didn't admire, much less care for, Captain Toshiro Hitsugaya. Indeed, she considered him exactly what he'd just confessed to thinking her– rude interferer. Only he, rather than interfering in the affairs of those less fortunate, seemed intent on constantly interfering inhers.

That fact, and that alone, was undoubtedly why, the moment Captain Hitsugaya's fingers closed over hers, Karin's pulse seemed to grow erratic. And why her breath grew short. And her cheeks hotter than ever. Why, the impudence of the man! And the fact that that teal eyed gaze seemed to be raking her face, taking in every little moonlit detail—for, of course, the moon would have come out again just then, when it was most inconvenient. Why, just who did Toshiro Hitsugaya think he was?

"It would be a shame," the captain went on, keeping a firm grip on the hand that Karin was attempting, albeit ineffectually, to slip from his grasp. He did not, however, seem to notice... or care, anyway. "A burning shame," he added forcefully, "were you to align yourself with a man who has never once considered doing anything for the good of anyone but himself."

Karin found herself—beyond all reasoning, and much to her horror—being pulled hypnotically toward Toshiro Hitsugaya, as if his eyes were, of all things, the moon, and she the tide. It was completely illogical, but there it was, and there didn't seem to be a blessed thing she could do about it. Even as they stared at each other, their faces just inches apart, Karin's body seemed to sway to fill the gap between them, in a manner of which she knew her ayah would have greatly disapproved. But she couldn't seem to stop herself, though of course it defied all logic. She didn't even like Toshiro Hitsugaya. Oh, certainly he was handsome enough, she supposed, in a darkly brooding sort of way. But those collar points! And that mouth—not to mention the things that seemed constantly to come out of it! How could she possibly feel attracted to such a person?

But what of him? For Toshiro had made it amply clear that she was not one of his favorite people. But he hadn't exactly dropped her hand and turned away in revulsion when she'd begun swaying toward him. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. He was swaying toward her as if as unable to stop himself as she was—

And then the worst thing possible occurred. Toshiro Hitsugaya swayed so far forward that his mouth actually collided with hers.

The next thing Karin knew, they were kissing. She and Toshiro Hitsugaya, the last man on earth whose lips she'd ever want to touch with her own. Kissing! And quite passionately, too. Toshiro had dropped her hand and reached out instead to seize her by both arms, as if fearful she'd sway so far forward the two of them would topple over the balcony railing, if he didn't attempt to stop her.

And she was no better! For her fingers had curled, as if of their own accord, around the back of the captain's neck, though Karin could in no way determine how they'd gotten there, unless Toshiro Hitsugaya had put them there... something she would not have put past him.

But, oh! It was strange how delightful it felt to have them there. Stranger still how delightful it felt to have Toshiro Hitsugaya's mouth on hers! Which was, of course, perfectly ridiculous, because Karin hated Hitsugaya—hated him with a passion, and, besides, was engaged to someone else... though, thanks to this evening's discoveries, she was not at all certain for how much longer.

Perhaps it was because she hated Toshiro Hitsugaya so passionately that kissing him felt so terribly exciting. For love and hate were both very strong emotions, so naturally both would incite very strong reactions. She loved—or at least was very fond of—Lord Sousuke, and so being kissed by him was quite pleasurable. Why wouldn't being kissed by someone about whom she felt just as strongly—if not even more strongly—elicit a similar sensation?

Except, of course, that she doubted being kissed by someone one detested was supposed to trigger anything but feelings of revulsion. And she, oddly enough, felt far from revolted by Toshiro Hitsugaya's kisses.

Oh, dear! For the first time since leaving India, Karin found herself longing for her wise old ayah, who would surely have been able to clear up this very disturbing mystery for her—would have been able satisfactorily to explain why it was that, even though she hated Toushiro Hitsugaya, the feel of his lips on hers made her heart beat so quickly inside her chest, she thought it might explode. Her heart had never beaten this quickly when Lord Sousuke kissed her... and he was her own fiancé! Something, Karin felt sure, was very, very wrong...

Especially considering the fact that, when Toshiro lifted his lips from hers and started to say her name in a voice that sounded quite unlike his own, it was so ragged, Karin only pulled his head down and started kissing him even more passionately than before...

What might have happened if they'd remained undisturbed, Karin later shuddered to think. He might possibly have proposed, and she might—la! What a joke!—possibly have accepted.

Fortunately, however, someone tried the terrace doors, and, hearing the latch rattle, the two of them sprang apart, Karin with cheeks she was sure were scarlet, and Toshiro with a silver strand of hair falling rakishly over one eye.

"Rin?" Rukia called, tugging on the latch. "Are you two still out there? Why won't the doors open? Are they stuck?"

Toshiro, with a composure of mind Karin quite envied, reached into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew the key.

"Yes," he said, in a voice that was a good deal steadier than any Karin could have summoned. "They stick sometimes when it rains." Then, with one last penetrating—and, to Karin, anyway, inscrutable— glance in her direction, he turned the key and opened the doors.

"Ah," he said, grinning in the rectangle of light that spilled out from the drawing room, and looking far handsomer than any man Karin had ever seen. "There. That's better. Lady Karin, will you come in?"

Karin, perfectly incapable of meeting anyone's gaze—but most of all the one belonging to the man she'd just been kissing—hurried inside, where she was immediately accused by her aunt, because of her high color, of having caught a chill while out-of-doors, and was summarily sent to bed with a hot brick as soon as she returned home... a turn of events that did not dismay her at all, as it happened, since her bed now seemed the only place in London where she was safe from the vagaries of her own heart.

* * *

**A/N:** finally! That kiss that I've been wanting to write for some time now has finally happened! My HitsuKarin inspirations are on a roll and I certainly can't believe it's already been a year since I published this story. So happy anniversary! And I have finally decided, this will contain a total of eighteen chapters, or at least I'll try to make it into eighteen chapters lol. Anyway, was this anything you expected or not? Let me know in the reviews :D and again I'm sorry for any confusion.

Until next time!~


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